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THE CELTIC MAGAZINE. 19
GAELIC AND CORNISH.
IN a short comparative study of the philological affinities of the Irish,
Manx, Breton and Welsh languages, contributed to the Gael of November
last, I spoke as follows
"
: The careful consideration of such word-growths
might enable us to determine some general laws, as to the special linguistic
conditions under which, in these later ages, the several members of the
great Celtic family have been marching on their several diverging ways ;
and any general linguistic laws, evolved on sure ground, in this one field
of the great Aiyan inquiry, -could not fail to be also eminently useful in
the wide domain" of general Aryan philology. In the same paper I
ventured also to express the hope that some of our more prominent Celtic
scholars would turn their attention to a field so full of the promise of rich
results. I regret that none of my learned friends seems disposed to take
the hint ; and, therefore, by way of a beginning, and, as it were, to show
the way to the da, majores on our little Scotch Olympus, I propose giving
here the first results of a short holiday excursion into the by-ways of
what remains to us of the Celtic literature of Cornwall. How much
remains to us of that old literature, in what condition, and of what quality,
needs not here be described. For, since the translation of Hovelacque into
English, we have had a good many popular re-productions of that author's
comprehensive summary on the subject. Neither, for the present, shall
I touch on the pregnant topics of word-growth and comparative inflectional
change. What I propose doing here is simply to inquire what words are
still common to the surviving remains of the Cornish and to our own
Scotch Gaelic. That question, narrow and simple as it seems to be, opens
up a very wide inquiry. For what they still possess in common, putting
aside all they could have borrowed from later neighbours, they must have
got in common, and got only at the old fireside of the old Aryan mother.
Our seemingly simple question thus broadens out into an inquiry which
may thus be formulated : What is there still common to Gael and Kerne*
of all that was their common patrimony, when in the dim primeval past
the family first divided, and each member took his several way, to make
new history, to encounter new and diverging fortunes, from new wants
and experiences to evolve new thoughts and contrivance, and in strange
lands, under foreign skies, to attune tongue aud ear to new name-sounds
for the same ? He who would successfully enter on this inquiry must
carefully remember the warning just hinted at. He must put clearly to
one side all such loan words as both members of the family could have
borrowed from others, either on the westward march, or after settling in
their new homes. If a Gaelic speaker, he must, before trimming his sails
to the freshening breeze of his natural enthusiasm, not only look out lor
the false lights of Cornish wreckers, but, even before leaving what he
* The Bretons in France, who claim a connection with Cornwall within the historic
of the oldest Breton ballads are set
period, speak of the Cornish as Kernes : and many
down by De la Villemarque as les Kerne : Dialecte de CornouaiUe. On this suggestion I
venture to call the Cornish men Kernes, in the same way as we call ourselves Gaels, Of
course I am aware of the wider and contemptuous sense in which the word is used by
English authors,