135-681: The Tamar ( / ˈ t eɪ m ɑːr / ; Cornish : Dowr Tamar ) is a river in south west England that forms most of the border between Devon (to the east) and Cornwall (to the west). A large part of the valley of the Tamar is protected as the Tamar Valley National Landscape (an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty ), and some is included in the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape (a World Heritage Site ) due to its historic mining activities. The Tamar's source
270-676: A UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape . In November 2013, South West Water was fined £50,000 after it admitted permitting the discharge of sewage from its Camels Head treatment plant into a tributary of the River Tamar for eight years. Together, the Tamar, Tavy and Lynher form the Tamar Valley National Landscape, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty . The Tamar Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covers around 195 km (75 sq mi) around
405-465: A paraphyletic assemblage. However, it indicated that the plains wanderer actually belonged into one of them. Following recent studies (Ericson et al., 2003; Paton et al., 2003; Thomas et al., 2004a, b; van Tuinen et al., 2004; Paton & Baker, 2006), the waders may be more accurately subdivided as follows, with Charadrii being repurposed into a monophyletic suborder of plovers, oystercatchers, and their close relatives. The waders are traditionally
540-454: 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
675-468: A Roman settlement named Tamaris, but it is unclear to which of those towns along the Tamar this refers. Plymouth , Launceston and the Roman fort at Calstock have been variously suggested. The river (and/or land on its banks) is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), a European Special Area of Conservation, and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. A part of it is also designated as
810-555: 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
945-496: A canal from there. The project however advanced no further than Gunnislake , with work ceasing in 1808. Barges of up to 30 tons could then proceed as far as Gunnislake New Bridge, bypassing the weir (above Weir Head) via a 500-yard canal to the west of the river. As the only completed work of the original project, this short canal became known as the Tamar Manure (Navigation) Canal. It had one lock allowing vessels to rise from
1080-455: 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
1215-457: A ditch. From here a pipe carries the water under the highway and the infant river Tamar is on its way to the sea at Plymouth." The Upper Tamar Lake and Lower Tamar Lake are two small reservoirs on the Tamar's upper course. The Lower Lake was constructed in the 1820s to feed the Bude Canal ; it is now a nature reserve. The Upper Lake was constructed in the 1970s and supplies fresh water to
1350-576: A greatly enlarged order Ciconiiformes . However, the classification of the Charadriiformes is one of the weakest points of the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, as DNA–DNA hybridization has turned out to be incapable of properly resolving the interrelationships of the group. Formerly, the waders were united in a single suborder Charadrii , but this has turned out to be a " wastebasket taxon ", uniting no fewer than four charadriiform lineages in
1485-534: A group of two Charadriiform suborders which include 13 families . Species in the third Charadriiform suborder, Lari , are not universally considered as waders, though the Larine families which may variously be included are listed below as well. Shorebirds is a blanket term used to refer to multiple bird species that live in wet, coastal environments. Because most these species spend much of their time near bodies of water, many have long legs suitable for wading (hence
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#17327650031261620-551: 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,
1755-868: 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
1890-516: 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
2025-463: A line running at the centre of the river — where the river is tidal, it is the centre of the low water channel. This "centre of river" arrangement ends just upstream of the Tamar Bridge at Saltash , downstream of which the counties officially extend only to their respective (tidal) bank's low water mark. The river is dammed at two points of its upper course, forming two reservoirs in place of
2160-503: 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
2295-767: 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
2430-540: 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
2565-648: 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
2700-626: 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
2835-504: 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
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#17327650031262970-611: A rail connection from Plymouth to London was opened, and fresh produce could be landed at the Devonport steamer quays in the evening and be on sale in London by the next morning. The growing city population created a large demand for sightseeing cruises on the river; this was a significant source of traffic from 1823, with the launch of the Cornish steam packet Sir Francis Drake , until the outbreak of World War II . Mineral traffic on
3105-403: A result, an increase in dimorphism. Bigger males tend to have greater access (and appeal) to female mates because their larger size aids them in defeating other competitors. Likewise, if the species exhibits gender role reversal (where males take on roles traditionally done by females such as childcare and feeding), then males will select female mates based on traits that are the most appealing. In
3240-443: A single female partner, males typically do not have distinctive dimorphic characteristics such as colored feathers, but they still tend to be larger in size compared to females. The suborder Charadrii displays the widest range of sexual dimorphisms seen in the order Charadriiformes. However, cases of sexual monomorphism, where there are no distinguishing physical features besides external genitalia, are also seen in this order. One of
3375-570: A spell on Tamara, turning her into a bubbling spring, which produced the Tamar river and flowed all the way to the sea. Tawradge awoke to find his beloved had become a river; in despair, he sought the advice of a magician, who turned him into a river (the River Torridge and the River Taw ) so that he could hope to reunite with Tamara. Tawradge was never able to find and merge with his beloved Tamara, instead turning north toward Bideford and
3510-614: 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
3645-525: 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
3780-556: A waste product but later offering an important source of revenue as copper and tin extraction declined in profitability. The refined product was exported worldwide, in particular to the southern United States, where it was used as an insecticide in the cotton fields. In the 13th century lead and silver output from the royal mines on the Bere peninsula (between the Tamar and the Tavy ) was significant, and production continued intermittently until
3915-434: 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
4050-606: Is a weir just downstream of the village of Gunnislake . Waterborne traffic through the Hamoaze is controlled by the Queen's Harbour Master for Plymouth, who is responsible for managing navigation along the entire tidal Tamar. The Royal Navy has one of its three main naval bases at Devonport , situated on the Hamoaze, upstream of which the river is now used largely by recreational craft. Excursions operate (April to October only) on
4185-473: Is another notable structure on the Tamar, being 120 feet (37 m) high with twelve 60-foot (18 m) wide arches, of which three of the piers stand in the river, and was built between 1904 and 1907. The total length of the tidal river (which, like other tidal waters in England, has public right of navigation) is 19.2 miles (30.9 km). The normal tidal limit (noted on Ordnance Survey maps as 'NTL')
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4320-468: Is at Horsebridge (1437), and the next oldest is Greystone Bridge near Lawhitton — this arched stone bridge was built in 1439. Gunnislake New Bridge was built in 1520 by Sir Piers Edgcumbe, the owner of Cotehele and Mount Edgcumbe. The Gunnislake bridge was a main route into south east Cornwall and the lowest bridge over the Tamar until the Tamar Bridge at Saltash was opened in 1962. The lower Tamar
4455-627: 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
4590-478: Is less than 6 km (3.7 mi) from the north Cornish coast, but it flows southward across the peninsula to the south coast. The total length of the river is 61 miles (98 km). At its mouth, the Tamar flows into the Hamoaze before entering Plymouth Sound , a bay in the English Channel . Tributaries of the river include the rivers Inny , Ottery , Kensey and Lynher (or St Germans River ) on
4725-629: Is spanned also by the Royal Albert Bridge (built 1859), a rail bridge now adjacent to the newer Tamar Bridge. Both of these bridges are between Saltash (known as the 'Gateway to Cornwall') and Plymouth. Further downstream, crossing the Hamoaze , is the Torpoint Ferry — a chain ferry connecting Torpoint to Devonport — and at the most downstream part of the Hamoaze there is also the Cremyll Ferry . The Calstock Viaduct
4860-584: Is the least sandpiper , small adults of which can weigh as little as 15.5 grams (0.55 oz) and measure just over 13 centimetres (5 inches). The largest species is believed to be the Far Eastern curlew , at about 63 cm (25 in) and 860 grams (1 pound 14 ounces), although the beach thick-knee is the heaviest at about 1 kg (2 lb 3 oz). In the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy , waders and many other groups are subsumed into
4995-725: Is the final place to turn boats; it was from here that smaller craft could begin their journey on the Tamar Manure Canal . In 1794 the Tamar Manure Navigation Company was formed to extend navigation inland for a further 30 miles, to Tamerton Bridge in North Tamerton . An Act of Parliament of 1796 authorised the works, with the company empowered to improve and manage navigation on the Tamar from Morwellham Quay upstream to Boat Pool, at Blanchdown (just upstream of Gunnislake), and to construct
5130-503: 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
5265-647: 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
5400-532: 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
5535-459: The Baltic , in large baulks for use as pit props in the mines, and coal from Wales to supply the mine pumping engines. Tavistock was one of the three stannary towns of Devon, and large quantities of refined tin ore were exported through Morwellham from the 12th century until 1838, when the requirement to pay duty on the metal at one of the specified towns was relaxed. The opening in 1817 of
River Tamar - Misplaced Pages Continue
5670-592: 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,
5805-597: The Bristol Channel and is still said to mourn his love, the Tamar. This legend explains why the River Torridge, which rises only 500 metres from the Tamar, veers away from the Tamar and forms a huge arc, eventually flowing to the North Devon coast. The other giant, Tavy, also awoke in despair and sought the aid of his own father, also a powerful magician. His father turned Tavy into a river as well, and
5940-511: The Bude area, as well as having some recreational use. The east bank of the Tamar was fixed as the border of Cornwall by King Athelstan in the year 936. Several villages north of Launceston , to the west of the Tamar, were transferred to Devon at some point in the eleventh century when the border was changed to follow the River Ottery westward, rather than the Tamar. The county boundary
6075-466: The Jacana species, females compete with each other for access to male mates, so females are larger in size. Males choose female mates based on who presents herself as the strongest and who 'owns' the most territory. Another factor that leads to the development of dimorphisms in species is natural selection . Natural selection focuses on traits and the environment's response to the traits in question; if
6210-560: The Tavistock Canal , between Tavistock and Morwellham, facilitated traffic. Later, the East Cornwall Mineral Railway provided an outlet through the quays of Calstock from the Cornish side of the valley. Other significant cargoes exported were quarried granite, and later, copper, lead and manganese ores, with their important by-product of arsenic . Arsenic was extracted from mispickel , once regarded as
6345-590: The Tavy set off in search of the Tamar, eventually finding her and merging with her into a wide and beautiful estuary . 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 is descended from the Common Brittonic language spoken throughout much of Great Britain before
6480-411: The estuary narrows into the tidal river, some 8.4 miles (13.5 km) upstream from Plymouth Sound. Vessels of 300 tons sailed as far inland as Morwellham, 17.2 miles (27.7 km) along the river from the sea. A further stretch of 1.8 miles (2.9 km) upstream to Weir Head, near Gunnislake, is accessible to smaller boats. Weir Head is just downstream of the weir at Gunnislake (the tidal limit) and
6615-674: The stannary town of Tavistock was added to the World Heritage List during the 30th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Vilnius, July 2006. The Environment Agency measures the water quality of the river systems in England. Each is given an overall ecological status, which may be one of five levels: high, good, moderate, poor and bad. There are several components that are used to determine this, including biological status, which looks at
6750-410: The " Three Towns " (Plymouth, Devonport and Stonehouse ) at the mouth of the river offered an important market for the valley's agricultural produce, needed in particular to serve the victualling requirements of the royal dockyard , and this was always carried by boat. In 1820 or 1821 the first paddle steamer on the Tamar inaugurated a service between Calstock and Devonport to deliver foodstuffs. In 1859
6885-492: 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
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#17327650031267020-566: 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
7155-497: 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
7290-448: 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
7425-496: 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
7560-507: 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
7695-425: The 19th century. The Johnson Matthey smelting works at Weir Quay extracted silver and lead not only from local ore, but also from ore imported by sea from Europe and from as far away as Newfoundland . Fluorspar from the lead mine tailings was exported to France for use in the manufacture of glassware. The old ferry crossings developed into the busy river quays of the 18th and 19th centuries. The development of
7830-518: 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
7965-485: The Arctic species, such as the little stint , are amongst the longest distance migrants, spending the non- breeding season in the southern hemisphere . Many of the smaller species found in coastal habitats, particularly but not exclusively the calidrids , are often named as "sandpipers", but this term does not have a strict meaning, since the upland sandpiper is a grassland species. The smallest member of this group
8100-512: 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
8235-829: 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
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#17327650031268370-469: 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,
8505-438: 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
8640-622: The Cornish side and the Deer and Tavy on the Devon side. The name Tamar (or Tamare) was mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD in his Geography . The name is said to mean "great water". The Tamar is one of several British rivers whose ancient name is assumed by some to be derived from a prehistoric river word apparently meaning "dark flowing" and which it shares with the River Thames . The seventh-century Ravenna Cosmography mentions
8775-513: 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
8910-399: 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 a common community language in parts of Cornwall until
9045-560: 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
9180-670: The Tamar Estuary Nature Reserve, owned by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust . The site was designated in 1991 for its biodiversity and varying habitats that support a large number of wader and wildfowl species, as well as the special interest of its marine biology. The site supports a nationally important wintering population of avocet and supports species such as black-tailed godwit , Eurasian whimbrel , greenshank , spotted redshank , green sandpiper and golden plover . Throughout human history
9315-471: The Tamar are very unusual and support species such as the hydroid Cordylophora caspia . The Tamar is one of a few estuaries where zonation of rocky habitats (intertidal and subtidal) can be observed along an estuarine gradient. The Tamar–Tavy Estuary is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) covering the tidal estuaries of the River Tamar and the River Tavy . Part of the Tamar estuary also forms
9450-482: The Tamar crossings. In medieval times the transport of goods to supply the Benedictine abbey at Tavistock , four miles by track from the river port of Morwellham, was significant. Sea sand from the coast was imported to spread on farmland, until in the 18th century a dressing of lime was found to be more beneficial. Large quantities of limestone and coal were then imported to burn in the numerous limekilns on
9585-462: The Tamar was an important river for shipping copper from ports such as Morwellham Quay , Calstock and New Quay (Devon) to south Wales where it would be smelted. The valley forms district A10i of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape . The river has long been famous for the quality of its salmon whilst the valley was known nationally for the high quality, and early, soft fruit and market gardens sheltered by its steeply winding slopes. There
9720-709: The Tavy river as far as Lydford , and burned Ordwulf 's monastery at Tavistock . During the English Civil War , Cornwall was entirely loyal to King Charles I and the Royalist cause. However, Devon was primarily Parliamentarian ; thus the River Tamar became the site of many battles, such as the Battle of Gunnislake New Bridge on 20 July 1664. Each side of the Tamar understood that if they were either to invade or to defend themselves, they had to have control of
9855-479: 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
9990-451: The banks of the river. A traditional Cornish tale claims that the devil would never dare to cross the River Tamar into Cornwall for fear of ending up as a pasty filling. Though unusual landscape features are often named after the devil (e.g. devil's frying pan) it used to be said that the devil never came to Cornwall: he once reached Torpoint and immediately noticed that various kinds of pie were customary; he feared that devilly pie might be
10125-409: 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
10260-483: 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
10395-489: The biggest factors that leads to the development of sexual dimorphism in shorebirds is sexual selection . Males with ideal characteristics favored by females are more likely to reproduce and pass on their genetic information to their offspring better than the males who lack such characteristics. Mentioned earlier, male shorebirds are typically larger in size compared to their female counterparts. Competition between males tends to lead to sexual selection toward larger males and as
10530-617: 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
10665-479: The border follows the river (from source to sea) currently exist, all of which are upstream of the confluence of the River Deer , in the upper course of the Tamar. Part of the Cornish civil parish of North Tamerton extends east across the river, whilst parts of the Devon civil parishes of Bridgerule and Pancrasweek extend west across the Tamar. Where the border does follow the Tamar, it is defined as being along
10800-557: 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,
10935-616: 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
11070-475: 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
11205-504: 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
11340-431: 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
11475-436: 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
11610-475: 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"
11745-605: 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
11880-473: The export of bricks and granite along this short navigation proved profitable for many years. The navigation from Launceston to Tamerton was completed in 1826 as part of a separate project, the Bude Canal . The Tamar Manure Navigation ceased functioning in 1929 and the company was wound up in 1942. In 997 according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , raiding Vikings travelled up the Tamar and then
12015-460: 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
12150-451: The giants on a dance, but never let them touch her, instead darting out of reach whenever they came too close. Tamara's father, who had been out looking for her, located her just as the giants finally caught up with her near Morwenstow . He flew into a rage and used a spell to put Tavy and Tawradge into a deep sleep. This infuriated Tamara, who subsequently refused to return to the underworld with her father. He became even more enraged and cast
12285-622: The heat of the Earth's core, which gave rise to ores containing tin , copper , tungsten , lead and other minerals in the Valley. The medieval estate of Cotehele , owned by the Edgcumbe family, was a significant producer of silver for the Royal Mint . During the industrial revolution, there was significant mining activity near the river, between Gunnislake and Weir Quay. During this period,
12420-400: 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
12555-402: 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
12690-957: 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
12825-406: 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 the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , and
12960-407: 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
13095-454: 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
13230-602: 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
13365-580: 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
13500-438: 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
13635-571: The lower Tamar (below Launceston ) and its tributaries the Tavy and the Lynher . It was first proposed in 1963, but was not designated until 1995. The highest point in the AONB is Kit Hill , 334 metres above sea level. The Tamar Discovery Trail is a 35-mile hiking route following the course of the Tamar through the valley. The Plymouth Sound and Estuaries are a Special Area of Conservation . Rocky reefs in low salinity estuarine conditions far inland on
13770-436: 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
13905-437: 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 the early 20th century, and in 2010 UNESCO reclassified
14040-477: The name 'Waders'). Some species prefer locations with rocks or mud. Many shorebirds display migratory patterns and often migrate before breeding season. These behaviors explain the long wing lengths observed in species, and can also account for the efficient metabolisms that give the birds energy during long migrations . The majority of species eat small invertebrates picked out of mud or exposed soil. Different lengths of bills enable different species to feed in
14175-546: The natural river: at Upper Tamar Lake the border follows the line of the river as it was prior to the construction of the reservoir (therefore now within the lake), whilst at the older Lower Tamar Lake the border was re-aligned along a (now disused) re-routing of the river to the reservoir's west side, placing the lake in Devon. List of crossings of the River Tamar The river has 22 road crossings, including some medieval stone bridges. The oldest bridge still extant
14310-552: The next kind so returned to Devon. This legend is set to music in the traditional Cornish folk song Fish and Tin and Copper . The legend behind the name involves a nymph by the name of Tamara, who lived in the underworld. Tamara wanted to wander freely in the mortal world, against the advice of her parents. One day, wandering in Dartmoor , she happened to meet two giants called Tavy and Torridge (or Tawradge). Both giants became smitten with Tamara and vied for her affections. Tamara led
14445-860: The noun: Wader Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to forage for food crawling or burrowing in the mud and sand, usually small arthropods such as aquatic insects or crustaceans . The term "wader" is used in Europe, while "shorebird" is used in North America, where "wader" may be used instead to refer to long-legged wading birds such as storks and herons . There are about 210 species of wader, most of which live in wetland or coastal environments. Many species of Arctic and temperate regions are strongly migratory , but tropical birds are often resident, or move only in response to rainfall patterns. Some of
14580-565: 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
14715-410: 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
14850-415: 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
14985-835: 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
15120-480: The outside world only through the port of Calstock, was extended to the Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway at Bere Alston . Tourist and market traffic on the river, using purpose-built or converted steamers, remained substantial until the Devonport piers were closed and the ships requisitioned on the outbreak of war in 1939. Rocks around the edge of Dartmoor were mineralised by fluids driven by
15255-400: The parish of Bridgerule to Devon and part of the parish of North Tamerton to Cornwall — these latter transfers created two of the present-day 'exceptions' to the river boundary. The modern administrative border between Devon and Cornwall more closely follows the Tamar and Hamoaze than the 'historic' county border (of the 11th to 19th centuries). Only three 'exceptions' to the rule that
15390-413: 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
15525-447: 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
15660-481: The quantity and varieties of invertebrates , angiosperms and fish. Chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations, is rated good or fail. According to Ordnance Survey mapping, the source of the Tamar is at Woolley Moor, approximately 3.5 miles (5.6 km) from the north Cornish coast, at 50°55′06″N 4°27′48″W / 50.9184°N 4.4633°W / 50.9184; -4.4633 . The location of
15795-473: 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
15930-508: 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
16065-511: The river between Plymouth and Calstock ; excursions used to operate as far as Morwellham Quay , but were suspended indefinitely in 2016. A passenger ferry also operates April to October between Cotehele Quay and Calstock. A typical Tamar vessel was a sailing barge , built on the open river bank, of up to 60 tons, with a peaked, gaff-rigged mainsail and a fore staysail . The Tamar was navigable by seagoing ships of up to 400 register tons as far inland as Weir Quay , near Bere Alston , where
16200-489: The river diminished towards the end of the 19th century, after the Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway reached Tavistock in 1859 (so making the Tavistock Canal to Morwellham redundant for transport, although it remains in use as a source of hydropower ) and as the copper and tin mines became exhausted. The decline accelerated from 1894, when the East Cornwall Mineral Railway , until then linked to
16335-403: The river quays; the lime had to be made locally as it was not slaked before application, and was too chemically reactive for transport by water after burning. Later, street sweepings and other refuse from Plymouth and Devonport , together with bones for the newly discovered bone fertiliser , were carried inland to manure the fields. Other regular imports were timber from British Columbia and
16470-435: The said trait increases the overall fitness of the individual possessing it, then it will be 'selected' and eventually become a permanent part of the population's gene pool. For example, depending on the food available in a shorebird specie's respective niche , bigger bill sizes may be favored in all individuals. This would essentially lead to monomorphism within the species but is subject to change once sexual selection acts on
16605-818: The same habitat, particularly on the coast, without direct competition for food. Many waders have sensitive nerve endings at the end of their bills which enable them to detect prey items hidden in mud or soft soil. Some larger species, particularly those adapted to drier habitats will take larger prey including insects and small reptiles . Shorebirds, like many other animals, exhibit phenotypic differences between males and females, also known as sexual dimorphism . In shorebirds, various sexual dimorphisms are seen, including, but not limited to, size (e.g. body size, bill size), color, and agility. In polygynous species, where one male individual mates with multiple female partners over his lifetime, dimorphisms tend to be more diverse. In monogamous species, where male individuals mate with
16740-465: 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
16875-402: The spring is a "high windswept plateau largely devoid of farmland, and inhabited by stunted trees and wiry undergrowth." The exact source of the river is difficult to pinpoint, because it arises "from a boggy morass . . . behind a hedge near some willow trees at Woolley Barrows . . . A small square stone culvert drains the first tentative trickle of water away from the bog, through a hedge and into
17010-588: The tidal Tamar to the water level above the weir. A salmon ladder bypassed the lock. The navigable route along the Tamar and the Manure Canal that was managed by the company (from Morwellham Quay upstream to Blanchdown) was known as the Tamar Manure Navigation and was 3.0 miles (4.8 km) in length. The import of fertilizer (at the time of the construction of the canal all types of which were typically referred to as "manure") and coal and
17145-569: The valley has been almost continuously exploited for its rich mineral and metal deposits including silver, tin, lead and arsenic leaving a unique archaeological landscape which forms a significant part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape. Remains include wheal or engine houses, deep and open cast mines dating from the Bronze Age through to the medieval and modern era, the export docks at Morwellham Quay were once an international centre of trade in copper, lead and arsenic. The valley, with
17280-537: 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
17415-564: 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
17550-708: 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
17685-417: 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
17820-567: 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
17955-403: 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
18090-487: Was restored to the Tamar in 1966, when the civil parishes of North Petherwin and Werrington were transferred from Devon to Cornwall. The Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 ensured parishes were entirely within one county. It transferred a part of the Rame Peninsula (on the west side of the Hamoaze ) from Devon to Cornwall (namely, parts of the parishes of Maker and St John ). The Act also transferred part of
18225-457: Was the speedy Tamar, which divides The Cornish and the Devonish confines; Through both whose borders swiftly downe it glides. And, meeting Plim, to Plimmouth thence declines: And Dart, nigh chockt with sands of tinny mines; From "Rivers of England" by Edmund Spenser The Alliterative Morte Arthure states that the mortal combat of King Arthur and Mordred took place close to
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