Page:The ancient language, and the dialect of Cornwall.djvu/85

 65 SHOET SPECIMENS OF THE COENISH DIALECT. It is beyond the scope of this book to make long extracts from Cornish writers of tales, and not very neces- sary, because the reader can so easily obtain original books full of the dialect. What is here quoted will only be just sufficient to give some idea of what the Cornish dialect is like. The reader should remember how the letters are pronounced in reading the following from Tregellas's story, called " Cali- fornia." "And so Isaac, you have been fortunate in California, have you 1 Iss, why how fortinate ! I have had putty good speed theere, and a good many good little sturts. Well, as you may say, I have done well-a-fine. But 'twas coose work theere I 'suree. My brother Tom was out theere weth me, and we lived like pigs a'most, we ded a'most, both of us ; that es to say, for the time you knaw. Aw, my dear ! sich sour maggoty bread, and sich ratten stinkin biskies, and sich sour belly-vengeance beer, when we could git any. And then the soort of a house we lived in wasn't better then a cow-house, what we righted up weth trees and sich like ; and as for our bed, Aw, my dear ! 'twas nothin' but strawy traade and leaves, and like that ; and