Wriggling like an angleditch

My husband has a very close connection with Cornwall, and although technically he wasn’t born there, he always thinks of Cornwall as being his native country, so it wasn’t surprising when he bought a book ‘A Glossary of the Cornish Dialect’ by K.C.Phillipps. This is not Kernewek, the Cornish language, although many dialect words must be rooted in this Celtic language.

It’s only a small book but packed with interesting information; the introduction is very interesting, explaining the history of the difficulty there was in the past with recording dialect words, partly because many of the people recording what Cornish people said were governed by Victorian ‘values’ so some of the more frank words and expressions were not recorded! The second chapter discusses spelling; most dialect is oral, and there has never been a codified way of spelling the words, phrases and idioms, however Mr Phillipps gives what he accepts are generalisations on the way words have been spelt and a guide to their pronunciation. He doesn’t use phonetic transcription, deliberately because what he has written is a different sort of publication. Mr Phillipps also gives a brief explanation of the grammar of dialect and a glimpse into the origins and connections with other forms of English. The last part of the beginning bit is about the different dialects in different areas of Cornwall; Cornish was the original language of the country, and English crept in from the north and west.

Useful, interesting and important as these introductory chapters are, the real fun comes with the glossary itself, and the following list of comparisons, of which Cornish has many! So here is a little alphabetical journey through Cornish dialect:

• apple-bee – wasp
• buddle – wash-tub
• conkerbell – icicle
• dabbered – muddy (clothes, legs etc)
• evil – four or five pronged manure fork
• flox – to spill
• gaddle – to drink greedily
• hepping-stock – mounting stone (for getting on a horse)
• iles – beards of barley
• joney – an ornament, especially a Staffordshire figure
• kewney – rancid or mildewed
• lewth – shelter
• milkey-dashels – roots and leaves of dandelion
• nuddick – neck
• oozle – throat
• peeth – a well
• quilkin – frog
• rigs – fun and frolics
• smeech – smell of burning, or any nasty smell
• totelish – mind wandering especially in old age
• urts – wortleberries, bilberries
• vizgy – a digging tool, combination of a mattock and small axe
• want – mole
• yafful – hand/armful especially of hay
• zam-zoodle – half-cooked

Marvellous,aren’t they! If you are interested the little book is available on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Glossary-Cornish-Dialect-K-C-Phillipps/dp/0907018912/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402561360&sr=8-1&keywords=k.c.phillipps