Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/398

324 A word may here be added relative to the Cornish tongue. The Celtic language is divided into two branches, one represented by the Irish and Gaelic of North Scotland, and this is called the Goidhelic, or Gaelic; the other by the Welsh, old Cornish, and Breton, and this is called the Brythonic.

The main distinction between them consists in the Gaelic employing k or the hard c where the Welsh and Cornish would use p. Thus pen is used in the latter, and ken in the former. When the Irish adopted the word purpur, purple, they changed it into corcair; and when they took the low Latin premter for presbyter into their language they twisted it into crumthir. The Cornish was identical with old Welsh, and the Breton was originally identical with the Cornish; but in course of time some changes grew up differentiating the tongues, and forming dialects derived from the same mother tongue, that is all.

In or about 1540 Dr. Moreman, vicar of Menheniot, in the east of the county, was the first to teach the people the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Commandments in English.

Carew, however, in his Survey of Cornwall in 1602 says, "Most of the inhabitants can speak no word of Cornish, but few are ignorant of 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, your answer will be, ' Meeg nauidna cowzasawzneck '—I can speak no Saxonage."

Carew's Survey was soon followed by that of