• Learning Cornish
• Cornish notes for beginners
• Section 6

Cornish notes for beginners by Neil Kennedy

6.1 Peleah wriga why moaz?

Wriga is also spelt riga.

6.2 Come → Came

Just as we say moaz: to go and eath: went, so we say doaz: to come and dheath: came.

6.3 Rig: Did

In the above examples you will see wriga why: did you/you did and rig hy/e: did she/he / she/he did. These are part of the verb gweel: to do/make.

You can use the forms above in questions:

You can use them after na to say did not:

All of the negative statements above can be turned into questions by changing the intonation of your voice:

6.4 Past Events

We know how to say did (rig), went (eath) and came (dheath). Here are a few more:

The final e of wraze, roze and dhroze is silent and serves to show that the vowel is long.

All of the above examples are irregular, i.e. they do not follow the usual pattern for forming the past tense. Most verbs, however, are regular. They adhere to the following rules to a greater extent than English verbs.

Step 1

Knock off the ending of the verb to leave the "stem".

There are various types of verb ending:

• -ia (occasionally spelt ya) endings
  sewiafollow

  rediaread

  reviarow

  clappiaspeak

  squatchiabreak
• -a endings
  canasing

  screffawrite

  leualead

  gweskadress

  evadrink
• -as endings
  gwellassee

  clowashear

  kerraswalk

  meraslook
• -y endings
  debryeat

  deskylearn

  prederythink

  gully/gulhywash
• -al endings
  lavaralsay

  savalget up/rise

  derhevalraise/build

  gweskalhit/strike

Step 2

Replace the ending with -as. This is just like adding -ed to a verb in English (walked, talked etc.).

• lavaral → lavaras
• screffa → screffas
• saval → savas

Some -ia verbs may keep the i of the ending: redia → redias.

Some verbs do not have an ending e.g. dallath: start. In these cases, simply add the -as to the whole verb: dallath + as → dallathas. In some cases this requires an internal spelling change: cowz + as → cowsas.

Step 3

The first letter of some verbs undergoes soft mutation, i.e. those that start with: b, c, d, gw, k, m, p, and t.

These are the rules for soft mutation:

• b & m → v
• c & k → g (often ignored when words start with co-)
• d → dh
• g → nothing
• gw → w or nothing (nothing means that the g simply disappears)
• p → b
• t → d or dh

Examples:

In the above examples some verbs have an a in front of them. This a is more often left out in speech, as well as in writing but it is the cause of the soft mutation described at Step 3 above. Even when it isn't said or written, its assumed presence still causes the softening.

If you have a sentence with two verbs in it, you only need to put the first verb into the past tense. Once the tense has been established by the first verb the second verb can remain unchanged (infinitive).

6.5 Personal Pronouns (I, he, she, we, you, they)

By now you will have seen all of the following:

Che (translated by thou in this book) is a way of saying you which is reserved for very intimate or informal conversation, so it is best to concentrate on ways of saying things with why. You can use che as an informal or intimate form of address if you wish, but why can be used in most circumstances, even close friends. Speakers of Unified and Kemmyn use che more often and they pronounce it like tee.

Me becomes ve after verbs, after dha (to) and in other circumstances which you will encounter.

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