Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/15

xii little Motherland, which rightly understood is no bar, but rather an advantage to the greater British patriotism, as has a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, or even a Colonial; and that he is as much a Celt and as little of an "Anglo-Saxon" as any Gael, Cymro, Manxman, or Breton. Language is less than ever a final test of race. Most Cornishmen habitually speak English, and few, very few, could hold five minutes' conversation in the old Celtic speech. Yet the memory of it lingers on, and no one can talk about the country itself, and mention the places in it, without using a wealth of true Cornish words. But a similar thing may be said of a very large proportion of Welshmen, Highlanders, Irishmen, Manx-men, and Bretons.

Omnia Grace,

Quum sit turpe magis nostris nescire Latine.

The reason why a Cornishman should learn Cornish, the outward and audible sign of his separate nationality, is sentimental, and not in the least practical, and if everything sentimental were banished from it, the world would not be as pleasant a place as it is.

Whether anything will come of the Cornish part of the Celtic movement remains to be seen, but it is not without good omen that this book is published at the "Sign of the Phœnix."

A few words of comprehensive apology for the shortcomings of this handbook. When the writer was