118-533: Looe ( / ˈ l uː / ; Cornish : Logh , lit. ' deep water inlet ' ) is a coastal town and civil parish in south-east Cornwall , England, United Kingdom, with a population of 5,280 at the 2011 census. Looe is 20 miles (32 km) west of Plymouth and seven miles (11 km) south of Liskeard , divided in two by the River Looe , East Looe (Cornish: Logh ) and West Looe (Cornish: Porthbyhan , lit. "little cove") being connected by
236-492: A common community language in parts of Cornwall until the mid 18th century, and there is some evidence for traditional speakers of the language persisting into the 19th century. Cornish became extinct as a living community language in Cornwall by the end of the 18th century , although knowledge of Cornish, including speaking ability to a certain extent, persisted within some families and individuals. A revival started in
354-511: A common hall and a schoolhouse, this building has reverted to its original ecclesiastical use, having been substantially restored in 1852, 1862 and 1915. The town was able to provide some 20 ships for the Siege of Calais in 1347. An early wooden bridge over the Looe River was in place by 1411; but it burned down and was replaced by the first stone bridge , completed in 1436. This featured
472-454: A Cornish scribe. No single phonological feature distinguishes Cornish from both Welsh and Breton until the beginning of the assibilation of dental stops in Cornish, which is not found before the second half of the eleventh century, and it is not always possible to distinguish Old Cornish, Old Breton, and Old Welsh orthographically. The Cornish language continued to flourish well through
590-555: A basis, and Nicholas Williams published a revised version of Unified; however neither of these systems gained the popularity of Unified or Kemmyn. The revival entered a period of factionalism and public disputes, with each orthography attempting to push the others aside. By the time that Cornish was recognised by the UK government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2002, it had become recognised that
708-472: A bridge . Looe developed as two separate towns each with MPs and its own mayor. The town centres around a small harbour and along the steep-sided valley of the River Looe which flows between East and West Looe to the sea beside a sandy beach. Offshore to the west, opposite the stonier Hannafore Beach, lies Looe Island . Archaeological evidence indicates that the area around Looe has been inhabited since
826-713: A busy port and situated with close access to the main road from London to Penzance . By then the textile industry was an important part of the town's economy, in addition to the traditional boatbuilding and fishing (particularly pilchards and crabs ). Trade and transport to and from thriving Newfoundland also contributed to the town's success. The Old Guildhall in East Looe is believed to have dated from around 1450. The constituencies of East Looe and West Looe were incorporated as parliamentary boroughs in 1571 and 1553 respectively. They both survived as rotten boroughs . and each returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) to
944-461: A chapel dedicated to St Anne in the middle. The current bridge, a seven-arched Victorian bridge, was opened in 1853. By that time Looe had become a major port, one of Cornwall's largest, exporting local tin , arsenic and granite , as well as hosting thriving fishing and boatbuilding industries. With effective civic leadership, Looe thrived in the Middle Ages and Tudor era, being both
1062-455: A complete version of a traditional folk tale, John of Chyanhor , a short story about a man from St Levan who goes far to the east seeking work, eventually returning home after three years to find that his wife has borne him a child during his absence. In 1776, William Bodinar, who describes himself as having learned Cornish from old fishermen when he was a boy, wrote a letter to Daines Barrington in Cornish, with an English translation, which
1180-551: A lampoon of either of the Tudor kings Henry VII or Henry VIII . Others are the Charter Fragment , the earliest known continuous text in the Cornish language, apparently part of a play about a medieval marriage, and Pascon agan Arluth ( The Passion of Our Lord ), a poem probably intended for personal worship, were written during this period, probably in the second half of the 14th century. Another important text,
1298-442: A large perfect Bronze Age tumulus and most likely the site for a post medieval beacon was located in a field just north of Hillcrest Nursing home in East Looe. Unfortunately, some time after 1823 the site was levelled, thus leaving no trace of the large barrow to be seen today. Additional tumuli have also been noted in the area of Looe, such as at the locally known Wooldown field and at the base of Shutta hill, however neither of
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#17327804852661416-868: A less substantial body of literature than the Middle Cornish period, but the sources are more varied in nature, including songs, poems about fishing and curing pilchards , and various translations of verses from the Bible, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed. Edward Lhuyd's Archaeologia Britannica , which was mainly recorded in the field from native speakers in the early 1700s, and his unpublished field notebook are seen as important sources of Cornish vocabulary, some of which are not found in any other source. Archaeologia Britannica also features
1534-516: A lesser extent French entered the Cornish language throughout its history. Whereas only 5% of the vocabulary of the Old Cornish Vocabularium Cornicum is thought to be borrowed from English, and only 10% of the lexicon of the early modern Cornish writer William Rowe, around 42% of the vocabulary of the whole Cornish corpus is estimated to be English loan words, without taking frequency into account. (However, when frequency
1652-503: A manifesto demanding a return to the old religious services and included an article that concluded, "and so we the Cornyshe men (whereof certen of us understande no Englysh) utterly refuse thys newe Englysh." In response to their articles, the government spokesman (either Philip Nichols or Nicholas Udall ) wondered why they did not just ask the king for a version of the liturgy in their own language. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer asked why
1770-767: A marriage ceremony from being conducted in Cornish as the Marriage Act 1949 only allowed for marriage ceremonies in English or Welsh. In 2014, the Cornish people were recognised by the UK Government as a national minority under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . The FCNM provides certain rights and protections to a national minority with regard to their minority language. In 2016, British government funding for
1888-540: A mixture of English and Brittonic influences, and, like other Cornish literature, may have been written at Glasney College near Penryn . From this period also are the hagiographical dramas Beunans Meriasek ( The Life of Meriasek ) and Bewnans Ke ( The Life of Ke ), both of which feature as an antagonist the villainous and tyrannical King Tewdar (or Teudar), a historical medieval king in Armorica and Cornwall, who, in these plays, has been interpreted as
2006-648: A number of orthographic, and phonological, distinctions not found in Unified Cornish. Kernewek Kemmyn is characterised by the use of universal ⟨k⟩ for /k/ (instead of ⟨c⟩ before back vowels as in Unified); ⟨hw⟩ for /hw/, instead of ⟨wh⟩ as in Unified; and ⟨y⟩, ⟨oe⟩, and ⟨eu⟩ to represent the phonemes /ɪ/, /o/, and /œ/ respectively, which are not found in Unified Cornish. Criticism of all of these systems, especially Kernewek Kemmyn, by Nicolas Williams, resulted in
2124-678: A number of toponyms, for example bre 'hill', din 'fort', and bro 'land', and a variety of animal names such as logoden 'mouse', mols ' wether ', mogh 'pigs', and tarow 'bull'. During the Roman occupation of Britain a large number (around 800) of Latin loan words entered the vocabulary of Common Brittonic, which subsequently developed in a similar way to the inherited lexicon. These include brech 'arm' (from British Latin bracc(h)ium ), ruid 'net' (from retia ), and cos 'cheese' (from caseus ). A substantial number of loan words from English and to
2242-504: A number of verbs commonly found in other languages, including modals and psych-verbs; examples are 'have', 'like', 'hate', 'prefer', 'must/have to' and 'make/compel to'. These functions are instead fulfilled by periphrastic constructions involving a verb and various prepositional phrases. The grammar of Cornish shares with other Celtic languages a number of features which, while not unique, are unusual in an Indo-European context. The grammatical features most unfamiliar to English speakers of
2360-614: A study by Kenneth MacKinnon in 2000. Jenefer Lowe of the Cornish Language Partnership said in an interview with the BBC in 2010 that there were around 300 fluent speakers. Bert Biscoe , a councillor and bard, in a statement to the Western Morning News in 2014 said there were "several hundred fluent speakers". Cornwall Council estimated in 2015 that there were 300–400 fluent speakers who used
2478-525: A variety of reasons by Jon Mills and Nicholas Williams , including making phonological distinctions that they state were not made in the traditional language c. 1500 , failing to make distinctions that they believe were made in the traditional language at this time, and the use of an orthography that deviated too far from the traditional texts and Unified Cornish. Also during this period, Richard Gendall created his Modern Cornish system (also known as Revived Late Cornish), which used Late Cornish as
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#17327804852662596-457: A wealthy Cornish family, Borlase's early life was much influenced by the archaeological work of his great-great-grandfather, Dr. William Borlase the Cornish historian. Young Borlase visited many of the ancient sites in Cornwall and in 1863 and supervised the excavations of the re-discovered prehistoric settlement and fogou at Carn Euny . Although Borlase produced many sketches he commissioned fellow Cornish antiquarian John Thomas Blight to do
2714-434: Is taken into account, this figure for the entire corpus drops to 8%.) The many English loanwords, some of which were sufficiently well assimilated to acquire native Cornish verbal or plural suffixes or be affected by the mutation system, include redya 'to read', onderstondya 'to understand', ford 'way', hos 'boot' and creft 'art'. Many Cornish words, such as mining and fishing terms, are specific to
2832-507: Is descended from the Common Brittonic language spoken throughout much of Great Britain before the English language came to dominate. For centuries, until it was pushed westwards by English, it was the main language of Cornwall , maintaining close links with its sister language Breton, with which it was mutually intelligible , perhaps even as long as Cornish continued to be spoken as a vernacular. Cornish continued to function as
2950-502: Is home to the Shark Angling Club of Great Britain . Nonetheless, Looe's main business today is tourism, with much of the town given over to hotels, guest houses and holiday homes , along with a large number of pubs , restaurants and beach equipment, ice cream and Cornish pasty vendors. Inland from Looe lie many camping and caravan sites, as well as the famous Woolly Monkey Sanctuary . Other local attractions include
3068-627: Is inherited direct from Proto-Celtic , either through the ancestral Proto-Indo-European language, or through vocabulary borrowed from unknown substrate language(s) at some point in the development of the Celtic proto-language from PIE. Examples of the PIE > PCelt. development are various terms related to kinship and people, including mam 'mother', modereb 'aunt, mother's sister', huir 'sister', mab 'son', gur 'man', den 'person, human', and tus 'people', and words for parts of
3186-658: Is likely that the secrets behind 'Giant's Hedge' may never be known, perhaps the history of the Hedge could even be a combination of different time periods. At the time of the Domesday Book in 1086 the manor of Pendrym, which included much of the site of modern-day East Looe, was still held by William the Conqueror , as part of his own demesne , which he later devolved to the Bodgrugan ( Bodrigan ) family. Land across
3304-503: Is to support the language, in line with the European Charter. A motion was passed in November 2009 in which the council promoted the inclusion of Cornish, as appropriate and where possible, in council publications and on signs. This plan has drawn some criticism. In October 2015, The council announced that staff would be encouraged to use "basic words and phrases" in Cornish when dealing with the public. In 2021 Cornwall Council prohibited
3422-647: The Tregear Homilies , was realized to be Cornish in 1949, having previously been incorrectly classified as Welsh. It is the longest text in the traditional Cornish language, consisting of around 30,000 words of continuous prose. This text is a late 16th century translation of twelve of Bishop Bonner 's thirteen homilies by a certain John Tregear, tentatively identified as a vicar of St Allen from Crowan , and has an additional catena, Sacrament an Alter, added later by his fellow priest, Thomas Stephyn. In
3540-532: The Cranken Rhyme , a corrupted version of a verse or song published in the late 19th century by John Hobson Matthews , recorded orally by John Davey (or Davy) of Boswednack , of uncertain date but probably originally composed during the last years of the traditional language. Davey had traditional knowledge of at least some Cornish. John Kelynack (1796–1885), a fisherman of Newlyn, was sought by philologists for old Cornish words and technical phrases in
3658-620: The 1885 general election , he was elected MP for St Austell . In 1886, he was made Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board . However he took to fine living. His Portuguese mistress exposed his debts and the scandal brought him ruin and bankruptcy. He resigned his seat in the House of Commons on 29 April 1887 and his house at Laregan was put up for auction on 17 May 1887. He left England to work in Ireland as
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3776-592: The Bodmin manumissions , which is a list of manumittors and slaves, the latter with mostly Cornish names, and, more substantially, a Latin-Cornish glossary (the Vocabularium Cornicum or Cottonian Vocabulary), a Cornish translation of Ælfric of Eynsham 's Latin-Old English Glossary, which is thematically arranged into several groups, such as the Genesis creation narrative , anatomy, church hierarchy,
3894-543: The Cheesewring on Bodmin Moor ) and the port of Looe. In 1856 the large quay of East Looe was built to handle the demands of the shipping trade, and in 1860, with the canal unable to keep up with demand, a railway was built linking Looe to Moorswater near Liskeard, along the towpath of the canal, which was used less and less until, by 1910, traffic ceased entirely. The railway was later linked to Liskeard proper, and as
4012-584: The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , and the language is often described as an important part of Cornish identity, culture and heritage. Since the revival of the language, some Cornish textbooks and works of literature have been published, and an increasing number of people are studying the language. Recent developments include Cornish music , independent films , and children's books. A small number of people in Cornwall have been brought up to be bilingual native speakers, and
4130-588: The Great Western Main Line and services to London Paddington . On the hilltop above East Looe lies Shutta, and beyond that the Sunrising housing estate and Looe Community Academy . Along the cliffs to the east is Plaidy Beach, and further on the bay and village of Millendreath . It is covered by the Looe East division of Cornwall Council . West Looe spreads west from the bridge on
4248-464: The Looe West, Lansallos and Lanteglos division of Cornwall Council . On New Year's Eve , Looe provides a surprisingly exciting and large celebration. The small fishing town, usually quiet in winter, due to the largely seasonal economy, is host to an influx of visitors. People flock to the streets in their hundreds, wearing fancy dress, a tradition upheld by all ages. The crowds begin the evening in
4366-457: The Neolithic period (although a possible series of ancient field systems, south of nearby Penarthtown, could suggest earlier Palaeolithic activity). A Neolithic stone axe, made of greenstone, was found in 1978 on a tidal gravel bank in the bed of West Looe River. Further Neolithic finds, such as flint arrow heads, have also been found in the fields above Trenant Point. Furthermore, the site of
4484-682: The bronze age . For example, Dr Keith Ray, the County Archaeologist for Oxfordshire, who is making a special study of the Giant's Hedge, is convinced that it originally continued on the west side of the River Fowey and was defended there by Castle Dore . Along the Hedge, there are numerous bronze age barrows , hillforts and ancient enclosures. Such as the Hall Rings, Kilminorth fort, the fort at Yearle's Wood and many more. It
4602-490: The unreformed House of Commons until the Great Reform Act of 1832. For example, Admiral Sir Charles Wager , a son and grandson of Kentish mariners, was an MP for West Looe early in his political career (1713–1715) and at the end of it (1741–1743). The seal of East Looe was blazoned An antique one-mast vessel in it a man and boy against the side of the hulk three escutcheons each charges with three bends , with
4720-492: The 'glotticide' of the Cornish language was mainly a result of the Cornish gentry adopting English to dissociate themselves from the reputation for disloyalty and rebellion associated with the Cornish language since the 1497 uprising. By the middle of the 17th century, the language had retreated to Penwith and Kerrier , and transmission of the language to new generations had almost entirely ceased. In his Survey of Cornwall , published in 1602, Richard Carew writes: [M]ost of
4838-621: The 1549 edition of the English Book of Common Prayer as the sole legal form of worship in England, including Cornwall, people in many areas of Cornwall did not speak or understand English. The passing of this Act was one of the causes of the Prayer Book Rebellion (which may also have been influenced by government repression after the failed Cornish rebellion of 1497 ), with "the commoners of Devonshyre and Cornwall" producing
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4956-497: The 16th century, resulting in the nasals /nn/ and /mm/ being realised as [ᵈn] and [ᵇm] respectively in stressed syllables, and giving Late Cornish forms such as pedn 'head' (Welsh pen ) and kabm 'crooked' (Welsh cam ). As a revitalised language , the phonology of contemporary spoken Cornish is based on a number of sources, including various reconstructions of the sound system of middle and early modern Cornish based on an analysis of internal evidence such as
5074-448: The 1970s. Criticism of Nance's system, particularly the relationship of spelling to sounds and the phonological basis of Unified Cornish, resulted in rival orthographies appearing by the early 1980s, including Gendal's Modern Cornish , based on Late Cornish native writers and Lhuyd, and Ken George's Kernewek Kemmyn , a mainly morphophonemic orthography based on George's reconstruction of Middle Cornish c. 1500 , which features
5192-496: The 1980s, Ken George published a new system, Kernewek Kemmyn ('Common Cornish'), based on a reconstruction of the phonological system of Middle Cornish, but with an approximately morphophonemic orthography . It was subsequently adopted by the Cornish Language Board and was the written form used by a reported 54.5% of all Cornish language users according to a survey in 2008, but was heavily criticised for
5310-507: The 19th century. It is difficult to state with certainty when Cornish ceased to be spoken, due to the fact that its last speakers were of relatively low social class and that the definition of what constitutes "a living language" is not clear cut. Peter Pool argues that by 1800 nobody was using Cornish as a daily language and no evidence exists of anyone capable of conversing in the language at that date. However, passive speakers , semi-speakers and rememberers , who retain some competence in
5428-452: The 20th century, including the growth in number of speakers. In 2002, Cornish was recognized by the UK government under Part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . UNESCO 's Atlas of World Languages classifies Cornish as "critically endangered". UNESCO has said that a previous classification of 'extinct' "does not reflect the current situation for Cornish" and is "no longer accurate". Cornwall Council 's policy
5546-728: The American painter Anne Estelle Rice , who famously painted her in red. The Portrait of Katherine Mansfield made in Looe has been exhibited since 1946 in the Te Papa Tongarewa museum of New Zealand . Looe and its surrounds are the filming location of BBC television crime drama Beyond Paradise , which first aired in 2023. It stands in for the fictional Devon town of Shipton Abbott. There have been Cornish wrestling tournaments, for prizes, held in Looe (both East Looe and West Looe) for centuries. Venues for tournaments have included:
5664-512: The Cornish Language . The publication of this book is often considered to be the point at which the revival movement started. Jenner wrote about the Cornish language in 1905, "one may fairly say that most of what there was of it has been preserved, and that it has been continuously preserved, for there has never been a time when there were not some Cornishmen who knew some Cornish." The revival focused on reconstructing and standardising
5782-829: The Cornish language ceased, and responsibility transferred to Cornwall Council. Until around the middle of the 11th century, Old Cornish scribes used a traditional spelling system shared with Old Breton and Old Welsh, based on the pronunciation of British Latin . By the time of the Vocabularium Cornicum , usually dated to around 1100, Old English spelling conventions, such as the use of thorn (Þ, þ) and eth (Ð, ð) for dental fricatives , and wynn (Ƿ, ƿ) for /w/, had come into use, allowing documents written at this time to be distinguished from Old Welsh, which rarely uses these characters, and Old Breton, which does not use them at all. Old Cornish features include using initial ⟨ch⟩, ⟨c⟩, or ⟨k⟩ for /k/, and, in internal and final position, ⟨p⟩, ⟨t⟩, ⟨c⟩, ⟨b⟩, ⟨d⟩, and ⟨g⟩ are generally used for
5900-469: The Cornish language comes from this period: a 9th-century gloss in a Latin manuscript of De Consolatione Philosophiae by Boethius , which used the words ud rocashaas . The phrase may mean "it [the mind] hated the gloomy places", or alternatively, as Andrew Breeze suggests, "she hated the land". Other sources from this period include the Saints' List , a list of almost fifty Cornish saints,
6018-438: The Cornish orthography within them. Around 1700, Edward Lhuyd visited Cornwall, introducing his own partly phonetic orthography that he used in his Archaeologia Britannica , which was adopted by some local writers, leading to the use of some Lhuydian features such as the use of circumflexes to denote long vowels, ⟨k⟩ before front vowels, word-final ⟨i⟩, and the use of ⟨dh⟩ to represent the voiced dental fricative /ð/. After
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#17327804852666136-513: The Cornishmen should be offended by holding the service in English, when they had before held it in Latin , which even fewer of them could understand. Anthony Fletcher points out that this rebellion was primarily motivated by religious and economic, rather than linguistic, concerns. The rebellion prompted a heavy-handed response from the government, and 5,500 people died during the fighting and
6254-544: The French. The blockade of 1808, which prevented the Looe fleet from reaching their pilchard-fishing areas, also put considerable financial strain on the community. In 1805, the old St. Mary's Chapel (apart from the tower ) had to be demolished due to dilapidation, and in 1817, the town was badly damaged by heavy storms and flooding. With the building of the Liskeard and Looe Union Canal linking Looe to Liskeard in 1828, and
6372-560: The Middle Cornish ( Kernewek Kres ) period (1200–1600), reaching a peak of about 39,000 speakers in the 13th century, after which the number started to decline. This period provided the bulk of traditional Cornish literature , and was used to reconstruct the language during its revival. Most important is the Ordinalia , a cycle of three mystery plays, Origo Mundi , Passio Christi and Resurrexio Domini . Together these provide about 8,734 lines of text. The three plays exhibit
6490-646: The Polperro Road towards Sclerder , and along the river south of the bridge, with hotels, restaurants and boarding houses along the waterfront and houses climbing the perilous cliff above, towards a cluster of shops and businesses and the Church of St. Nicholas. West Looe rises onto the Downs, a public recreation ground, well known for local dog walkers. Beyond this is West Looe cemetery, as well as Porthbythan Road, Goonwartha Road and Tregarrick. Further south along
6608-450: The UK to celebrate New Year, and ranked third on the list for 2007–08. Looe is regenerating itself, like many other ports, to serve as a small cargo port. On the high ground north of East and West Looe there are many modern houses and a recreational area called 'the Downs'. East Looe centres on its broad sandy beach, with the distinctive Banjo Pier designed by Joseph Thomas , a new lifeboat station and St Mary's Church. Stretching back from
6726-457: The ancient earthwork may have been or its intended purpose. While the name and early folklore suggests it was built by a giant, as the rhyme goes "One day, the Devil having nothing to do, built a great hedge from Lerryn to Looe" , the general consensus is that this linear earthwork marked the boundary of a post-Roman kingdom. During the mid-18th century, British antiquarian William Borlase believed
6844-479: The authorities came to associate it with sedition and "backwardness". This proved to be one of the reasons why the Book of Common Prayer was never translated into Cornish (unlike Welsh ), as proposals to do so were suppressed in the rebellion's aftermath. The failure to translate the Book of Common Prayer into Cornish led to the language's rapid decline during the 16th and 17th centuries. Peter Berresford Ellis cites
6962-409: The basis of revived Cornish ( Kernewek Dasserghys ) for most of the 20th century. During the 1970s, criticism of Nance's system, including the inconsistent orthography and unpredictable correspondence between spelling and pronunciation, as well as on other grounds such as the archaic basis of Unified and a lack of emphasis on the spoken language, resulted in the creation of several rival systems. In
7080-525: The beaches, sailing, fishing and diving , and spectacular coastal walks (especially via Talland to Polperro ). South East Cornwall boasts several stately homes, including Antony House , Cotehele , Mount Edgcumbe and Lanhydrock House , as well as the Eden Project near St Austell which tourists can access by road. Outside the busy summer months, the town remains a centre for shopping and entertainment for local villagers. Annually in late September,
7198-483: The beginning of the Celtic Revival in the late 19th century, provided the groundwork for a Cornish language revival movement. Notwithstanding the uncertainty over who was the last speaker of Cornish, researchers have posited the following numbers for the prevalence of the language between 1050 and 1800. In 1904, the Celtic language scholar and Cornish cultural activist Henry Jenner published A Handbook of
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#17327804852667316-617: The body, including lof 'hand' and dans 'tooth'. Inherited adjectives with an Indo-European etymology include newyth 'new', ledan 'broad, wide', rud 'red', hen 'old', iouenc 'young', and byw 'alive, living'. Several Celtic or Brittonic words cannot be reconstructed to Proto-Indo-European, and are suggested to have been borrowed from unknown substrate language(s) at an early stage, such as Proto-Celtic or Proto-Brittonic. Proposed examples in Cornish include coruf 'beer' and broch 'badger'. Other words in Cornish inherited direct from Proto-Celtic include
7434-517: The centre of the bridge in medieval times stood the Chapel of St Anne (dedicated in 1436): this dedication was attributed to the town chapel by Dr George Oliver and has been adopted ever since, displacing that of St Mary. West Looe comprised part of the parish of Talland since the early Middle Ages , but a chapel of ease, St Nicholas' Church, West Looe was extant before 1330 when it is recorded as being further endowed and enlarged. After spells as
7552-615: The church is a grid of narrow streets forming the main business area of the town, packed with many small shops, restaurants and pubs and the Old Guildhall, now a museum. Along the estuary lies the quay with its fish merchants. Towards Looe Bridge lies the Victorian Guildhall, and just north of the bridge the railway station . This is the terminus of the Looe Valley branch line to Liskeard , where it connects to
7670-407: The coast road is Hannafore Point, marking the edge of Looe Harbour, with to the west the wide, stony Hannafore Beach, facing across a narrow channel to Looe Island. Beyond lies the coastal path leading to Portnadler Bay , Talland and Porthallow , and then onward to Polperro. Two towers mark one end of a nautical measured mile , the other end is marked by two towers near Talland Bay. It is part of
7788-700: The communities on both sides of the River Looe. With the Victorian fashion for seaside holidays, Looe evolved as a tourist town, with nearby Talland Bay being dubbed "the playground of Plymouth". This trend continued throughout the 20th century; more and more hotels and tourist facilities were built in the town, and Looe grew and prospered, with peaks in fishing and boatbuilding following the First and Second World Wars. New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield stayed in Looe for spring and summer 1918, while recovering from tuberculosis . She joined there her long-time friend
7906-557: The creation of Unified Cornish Revised, a modified version of Nance's orthography, featuring: an additional phoneme not distinguished by Nance, "ö in German schön ", represented in the UCR orthography by ⟨ue⟩; replacement of ⟨y⟩ with ⟨e⟩ in many words; internal ⟨h⟩ rather than ⟨gh⟩; and use of final ⟨b⟩, ⟨g⟩, and ⟨dh⟩ in stressed monosyllables. A Standard Written Form , intended as a compromise orthography for official and educational purposes,
8024-560: The culture of Cornwall. Examples include atal 'mine waste' and beetia 'to mend fishing nets'. Foogan and hogan are different types of pastries. Troyl is a 'traditional Cornish dance get-together' and Furry is a specific kind of ceremonial dance that takes place in Cornwall. Certain Cornish words may have several translation equivalents in English, so for instance lyver may be translated into English as either 'book' or 'volume' and dorn can mean either 'hand' or 'fist'. As in other Celtic languages, Cornish lacks
8142-527: The defeat of the Britons at the Battle of Deorham in about 577. The western dialects eventually evolved into modern Welsh and the now extinct Cumbric , while Southwestern Brittonic developed into Cornish and Breton, the latter as a result of emigration to parts of the continent, known as Brittany over the following centuries. The area controlled by the southwestern Britons was progressively reduced by
8260-504: The dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/, a usage which is unique to Middle Cornish and is never found in Middle English. Middle Cornish scribes tend to use ⟨c⟩ for /k/ before back vowels, and ⟨k⟩ for /k/ before front vowels, though this is not always true, and this rule is less consistent in certain texts. Middle Cornish scribes almost universally use ⟨wh⟩ to represent /ʍ/ (or /hw/), as in Middle English. Middle Cornish, especially towards
8378-478: The development of booming copper mines in the Caradon area from 1837, Looe's fortunes began to revive. The Herodsfoot mine produced 13,470 tons of lead between 1848 and 1884 and more than 17 tons of silver between 1853 and 1884. The canal was used first to transport lime from Wales for use in Cornish farming, and later to carry copper and granite between the railhead at Liskeard (from where rail links reached to
8496-400: The early 20th century, and in 2010 UNESCO reclassified the language as critically endangered , stating that its former classification of the language as extinct was no longer accurate. The language has a growing number of second-language speakers, and a very small number of families now raise children to speak revived Cornish as a first language . Cornish is currently recognised under
8614-465: The earthwork to be the remnants of a Roman road , that would connect Looe to the Fowey estuary. Whilst this theory is now disputed by some historians, there has been some archaeological finds, such as a hoard of Roman coins found at Lerryn and a possible Roman fort at Lanreath , that could back this theory. Other theories suggest that 'Giant's Hedge' is actually far more ancient and may even date back to
8732-431: The end of this period, tends to use orthographic ⟨g⟩ and ⟨b⟩ in word-final position in stressed monosyllables, and ⟨k⟩ and ⟨p⟩ in word-final position in unstressed final syllables, to represent the reflexes of late Brittonic /ɡ/ and /b/, respectively. Written sources from this period are often spelled following English spelling conventions since many of the writers of the time had not been exposed to Middle Cornish texts or
8850-553: The engravings for the report. Borlase was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford . He was called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1882 and was JP for Cornwall and a Deputy Warden of the Stannaries of Cornwall and Devon . In the 1880 general election , Borlase was elected Liberal Member of Parliament for East Cornwall , until the seat was divided in the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 . In
8968-436: The evidence of this rhyme, of what there was to lose by neglecting John Davey." The search for the last speaker is hampered by a lack of transcriptions or audio recordings, so that it is impossible to tell from this distance whether the language these people were reported to be speaking was Cornish, or English with a heavy Cornish substratum , nor what their level of fluency was. Nevertheless, this academic interest, along with
9086-475: The existence of multiple orthographies was unsustainable with regards to using the language in education and public life, as none had achieved a wide consensus. A process of unification was set about which resulted in the creation of the public-body Cornish Language Partnership in 2005 and agreement on a Standard Written Form in 2008. In 2010 a new milestone was reached when UNESCO altered its classification of Cornish, stating that its previous label of "extinct"
9204-605: The expansion of Wessex over the next few centuries. During the Old Cornish ( Kernewek Koth ) period (800–1200), the Cornish-speaking area was largely coterminous with modern-day Cornwall , after the Saxons had taken over Devon in their south-westward advance, which probably was facilitated by a second migration wave to Brittany that resulted in the partial depopulation of Devon. The earliest written record of
9322-460: The family, names for various kinds of artisans and their tools, flora, fauna, and household items. The manuscript was widely thought to be in Old Welsh until the 18th century when it was identified as Cornish by Edward Lhuyd . Some Brittonic glosses in the 9th-century colloquy De raris fabulis were once identified as Old Cornish, but they are more likely Old Welsh, possibly influenced by
9440-482: The field at Barbican Farm, the field adjoining the Old Barbican, Looe Beach and West Looe Down. Looe remains a fishing town, and retained several fish dealers operating from the East Looe quayside until the advent of EU regulations. With its fleet of small fishing boats returning their catches to port daily, Looe has a reputation for procuring excellent fresh fish. The town is also a centre for shark fishing , and
9558-400: The individualised nature of language take-up. Nevertheless, there is recognition that the number of Cornish speakers is growing. From before the 1980s to the end of the 20th century there was a sixfold increase in the number of speakers to around 300. One figure for the number of people who know a few basic words, such as knowing that "Kernow" means "Cornwall", was 300,000; the same survey gave
9676-402: The inhabitants can speak no word of Cornish, but very few are ignorant of the English; and yet some so affect their own, as to a stranger they will not speak it; for if meeting them by chance, you inquire the way, or any such matter, your answer shall be, " Meea navidna caw zasawzneck ," "I [will] speak no Saxonage." The Late Cornish ( Kernewek Diwedhes ) period from 1600 to about 1800 has
9794-430: The island could possibly be Ictis , the tin trading island seen by Pytheas in the 4th century BC and recalled by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC. Additionally, a small hoard of eight late Roman coins was recovered in 2008. These coins were recovered from one of the shallow ditches forming a 'pear-shaped enclosure' which encompassed the top of Looe Island and the later Christian chapel site. All eight coins date to
9912-957: The language are the initial consonant mutations , the verb–subject–object word order, inflected prepositions , fronting of emphasised syntactic elements and the use of two different forms for 'to be'. Cornish has initial consonant mutation : The first sound of a Cornish word may change according to grammatical context. As in Breton, there are four types of mutation in Cornish (compared with three in Welsh , two in Irish and Manx and one in Scottish Gaelic ). These changes apply to only certain letters (sounds) in particular grammatical contexts, some of which are given below: Cornish has no indefinite article . Porth can either mean 'harbour' or 'a harbour'. In certain contexts, unn can be used, with
10030-407: The language despite not being fluent nor using the language in daily life, generally survive even longer. The traditional view that Dolly Pentreath (1692–1777) was the last native speaker of Cornish has been challenged, and in the 18th and 19th centuries there was academic interest in the language and in attempting to find the last speaker of Cornish. It has been suggested that, whereas Pentreath
10148-654: The language is taught in schools and appears on street nameplates. The first Cornish-language day care opened in 2010. Cornish is a Southwestern Brittonic language, a branch of the Insular Celtic section of the Celtic language family , which is a sub-family of the Indo-European language family. Brittonic also includes Welsh , Breton , Cumbric and possibly Pictish , the last two of which are extinct . Scottish Gaelic , Irish and Manx are part of
10266-580: The language regularly, with 5,000 people having a basic conversational ability in the language. A report on the 2011 Census published in 2013 by the Office for National Statistics placed the number of speakers at somewhere between 325 and 625. In 2017 the ONS released data based on the 2011 Census that placed the number of speakers at 557 people in England and Wales who declared Cornish to be their main language, 464 of whom lived in Cornwall. The 2021 census listed
10384-438: The language, including coining new words for modern concepts, and creating educational material in order to teach Cornish to others. In 1929 Robert Morton Nance published his Unified Cornish ( Kernewek Unys ) system, based on the Middle Cornish literature while extending the attested vocabulary with neologisms and forms based on Celtic roots also found in Breton and Welsh, publishing a dictionary in 1938. Nance's work became
10502-479: The late 3rd or early 4th century AD. One of Looe's greatest archaeological mysteries is the so called 'Giant's Hedge', which is an ancient earthwork which runs over 9 miles between the Looe and Fowey Estuaries. In some places it is still twelve feet high, and where it is best preserved (for example, in Willake Wood) it is stone-faced and flanked by a ditch. Over the years, there have been many theories to what
10620-455: The legend "Si, comunetatis de Loo". The seal of West Looe was An armed man holding a bow in his right hand and an arrow in his left , with the legend "Por-tu-an vel Wys Westlo". In June 1625, the fishing port of Looe was raided by Barbary pirates who streamed into the cobbled streets and forced their way into cottages and taverns. Much to their fury, they discovered that the villagers had been forewarned of their arrival and many had fled into
10738-436: The meaning 'a certain, a particular', e.g. unn porth 'a certain harbour'. There is, however, a definite article an 'the', which is used for all nouns regardless of their gender or number, e.g. an porth 'the harbour'. Cornish nouns belong to one of two grammatical genders , masculine and feminine, but are not inflected for case . Nouns may be singular or plural. Plurals can be formed in various ways, depending on
10856-404: The mining boom came to an end, it adapted to carry passengers in 1879. In 1866, a lifeboat station had been established on East Looe Beach, and in 1877 a new town hall was built: the new Looe Guildhall . Around this time recommendations were made that the two towns be merged under one governing body, and despite much protest Looe Urban District Council was formed in 1898 with jurisdiction over
10974-501: The noun: William Copeland Borlase William Copeland Borlase FSA (5 April 1848 – 31 March 1899) was a British antiquarian and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 until 1887 when he was ruined by bankruptcy and scandal. Borlase was born at Castle Horneck , near Penzance in Cornwall, England, the only son of Samuel Borlase and his wife Mary Anne ( née Copeland) Borlase (d. 1882), daughter of William Copeland of Chigwell , Essex . A member of
11092-565: The number of Cornish speakers at 563. A study that appeared in 2018 established the number of people in Cornwall with at least minimal skills in Cornish, such as the use of some words and phrases, to be more than 3,000, including around 500 estimated to be fluent. The Institute of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter is working with the Cornish Language Partnership to study the Cornish language revival of
11210-410: The number of people able to have simple conversations as 3,000. The Cornish Language Strategy project commissioned research to provide quantitative and qualitative evidence for the number of Cornish speakers: due to the success of the revival project it was estimated that 2,000 people were fluent (surveyed in spring 2008), an increase from the estimated 300 people who spoke Cornish fluently suggested in
11328-415: The orthography and rhyme used in the historical texts, comparison with the other Brittonic languages Breton and Welsh, and the work of the linguist Edward Lhuyd , who visited Cornwall in 1700 and recorded the language in a partly phonetic orthography. Cornish is a Celtic language, and the majority of its vocabulary, when usage frequency is taken into account, at every documented stage of its history
11446-835: The other Brittonic languages. The first sound change to distinguish Cornish from both Breton and Welsh, the assibilation of the dental stops /t/ and /d/ in medial and final position, had begun by the time of the Vocabularium Cornicum , c. 1100 or earlier. This change, and the subsequent, or perhaps dialectical, palatalization (or occasional rhotacization in a few words) of these sounds, results in orthographic forms such as Middle Cornish tas 'father', Late Cornish tâz (Welsh tad ), Middle Cornish cresy 'believe', Late Cornish cregy (Welsh credu ), and Middle Cornish gasa 'leave', Late Cornish gara (Welsh gadael ). A further characteristic sound change, pre-occlusion , occurred during
11564-413: The phonemes /b/, /d/, /ɡ/, /β/, /ð/, and /ɣ/ respectively, meaning that the results of Brittonic lenition are not usually apparent from the orthography at this time. Middle Cornish orthography has a significant level of variation, and shows influence from Middle English spelling practices. Yogh (Ȝ ȝ) is used in certain Middle Cornish texts, where it is used to represent a variety of sounds, including
11682-447: The publication of Jenner's Handbook of the Cornish Language , the earliest revivalists used Jenner's orthography, which was influenced by Lhuyd's system. This system was abandoned following the development by Nance of a "unified spelling", later known as Unified Cornish , a system based on a standardization of the orthography of the early Middle Cornish texts. Nance's system was used by almost all Revived Cornish speakers and writers until
11800-473: The rebellion's aftermath. Government officials then directed troops under the command of Sir Anthony Kingston to carry out pacification operations throughout the West Country. Kingston subsequently ordered the executions of numerous individuals suspected of involvement with the rebellion as part of the post-rebellion reprisals. The rebellion eventually proved a turning-point for the Cornish language, as
11918-508: The reign of Henry VIII, an account was given by Andrew Boorde in his 1542 Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge . He states, " In Cornwall is two speches, the one is naughty Englysshe, and the other is Cornysshe speche. And there be many men and women the which cannot speake one worde of Englysshe, but all Cornyshe. " When Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity 1549 , which established
12036-455: The river belonged to the manors of Portalla (or Portallant) and Portbyhan (variously spelt Portbyan, Porthbyghan, Porthpyghan, among others). Shutta, on the steep hillside over East Looe, is recorded as being inhabited by the 12th century. Between 1154 and 1189 Henry II granted a charter in favour of Sir Henry Bodrugan as Mayor of East Looe. West Looe was given free borough status sometime after this (the first known historical mention of
12154-465: The separate Goidelic branch of Insular Celtic. Joseph Loth viewed Cornish and Breton as being two dialects of the same language, claiming that "Middle Cornish is without doubt closer to Breton as a whole than the modern Breton dialect of Quiberon [ Kiberen ] is to that of Saint-Pol-de-Léon [ Kastell-Paol ]." Also, Kenneth Jackson argued that it is almost certain that Cornish and Breton would have been mutually intelligible as long as Cornish
12272-452: The south coast, were constructed with their living quarters upstairs and a storage area at ground level below: for boats , tools and fishing tackle , etc ; these are termed "fishermen's cellars ". Some time before 1144, the Order of Saint Benedict occupied Looe Island , building a chapel there, and the monks established a rudimentary lighthouse service using beacons . Another chapel
12390-427: The southern enclosure could possibly be a Roman signal station however the site has never been formally excavated. Furthermore, pieces of a Roman amphorae , stone boat anchors, Roman coins and a number of late prehistoric or Romano-British finds have been made in the vicinity of nearby Looe Island. A large bronze ingot was found by divers to the south of the island. This has led to a number of historians to suggest that
12508-444: The surrounding orchards and meadows to escape. The pirates still managed to seize eighty mariners and fishermen. Those unfortunate individuals were led away in chains to North Africa to be enslaved, and the town itself was torched. By the start of the 1800s, Looe's fortunes were in decline. The Napoleonic Wars had taken their toll on the country; in 1803, the town formed a volunteer company to man guns in defence against attack from
12626-537: The town and slowly move towards the seafront for a fireworks display to see in the New Year. Looe is twinned with Quiberon ( Breton : Kiberen ) in Brittany , France. Cornish language Cornish ( Standard Written Form : Kernewek or Kernowek , pronounced [kəɾˈnuːək] ) is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family . Along with Welsh and Breton , Cornish
12744-449: The town dates from 1327) and in the 1230s East Looe secured the right to hold a weekly market and a Michaelmas fair . East Looe's layout looks like a "planted borough", a concept similar to modern new towns , since most of its streets form a grid-like pattern. Low-lying parts of Looe continue to suffer frequent flooding when the tides are very high. For practical reasons, most fishermen 's houses in ancient Looe, like elsewhere along
12862-480: The town is the destination of choice for thousands of music lovers and top name performers for the Looe Music Festival , which takes place in temporary venues around the town, harbour and on East Looe beach. There is a tradition of the townsfolk wearing fancy dress on New Year's Eve , when the streets are thronged with revellers in inventive outfits. Looe has been on the list of the top ten places in
12980-401: The tumuli are visible today. Throughout the Looe area, there are also numerous Iron Age and Romano-British forts. These include the nearby forts/settlements near Trelawne and Great Tree. Additionally, there are some archaeological evidence to suggest there was some small scale Roman influence and possible occupation in Looe. For example, during the early 1800s, a very probable Roman urn
13098-537: The years 1550–1650 as a century of immense damage for the language, and its decline can be traced to this period. In 1680 William Scawen wrote an essay describing 16 reasons for the decline of Cornish, among them the lack of a distinctive Cornish alphabet , the loss of contact between Cornwall and Brittany , the cessation of the miracle plays, loss of records in the Civil War, lack of a Cornish Bible and immigration to Cornwall. Mark Stoyle , however, has argued that
13216-564: Was a living language, and that Cornish and Breton are especially closely related to each other and less closely related to Welsh. Cornish evolved from the Common Brittonic spoken throughout Britain south of the Firth of Forth during the British Iron Age and Roman period . As a result of westward Anglo-Saxon expansion , the Britons of the southwest were separated from those in modern-day Wales and Cumbria , which Jackson links to
13334-587: Was found whilst developing the road on St Martins hill. It is said that the urn was brown in colour, was about 10 inches high and contained several burnt human bone fragments. Close to the spot where the urn was found, a rock containing numerous specimens of bivalve shells , most likely Terebratula , was found. Unfortunately however, the exact location of the burial and the whereabouts of the urn has been lost to time. Subsequently, earthwork remains, of two rectilinear enclosures, can be seen using LiDar in fields near Trelawne just outside Looe. Morphology suggests that
13452-417: Was founded on an opposite hillside just outside West Looe; both are now marked only by ruins. The parish church of East Looe was at St Martin by Looe but there was a chapel of ease in the town. St Mary's Church, East Looe was dedicated in 1259 by Walter Bronscombe , Bishop of Exeter . Despite rebuilding commencing in 1805, it has since fallen into disrepair, although the original Tower still remains. On
13570-708: Was introduced in 2008, although a number of previous orthographic systems remain in use and, in response to the publication of the SWF, another new orthography, Kernowek Standard , was created, mainly by Nicholas Williams and Michael Everson, which is proposed as an amended version of the Standard Written Form. The phonological system of Old Cornish, inherited from Proto-Southwestern Brittonic and originally differing little from Old Breton and Old Welsh, underwent various changes during its Middle and Late phases, eventually resulting in several characteristics not found in
13688-526: Was no longer accurate. Speakers of Cornish reside primarily in Cornwall , which has a population of 563,600 (2017 estimate). There are also some speakers living outside Cornwall, particularly in the countries of the Cornish diaspora , as well as in other Celtic nations . Estimates of the number of Cornish speakers vary according to the definition of a speaker, and is difficult to determine accurately due to
13806-567: Was probably the last monolingual speaker, the last native speaker may have been John Davey of Zennor, who died in 1891. However, although it is clear Davey possessed some traditional knowledge in addition to having read books on Cornish, accounts differ of his competence in the language. Some contemporaries stated he was able to converse on certain topics in Cornish whereas others affirmed they had never heard him claim to be able to do so. Robert Morton Nance , who reworked and translated Davey's Cranken Rhyme, remarked, "There can be no doubt, after
13924-403: Was probably the last prose written in the traditional language. In his letter, he describes the sociolinguistics of the Cornish language at the time, stating that there are no more than four or five old people in his village who can still speak Cornish, concluding with the remark that Cornish is no longer known by young people. However, the last recorded traditional Cornish literature may have been
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