KELICS OF THE CORNISH LANGUAGE. 279 



where, indeed, as was said even in EKzabeth's time, the 

 stranger who lost his way and asked for it in English might meet 

 the reply, ''mee a na-vidra cowza Sawneck." ^' I have not learnt 

 to talk Saxony 



As samples of Cornish names, let me instance a few places, 

 close to my own house and in my own parish. 



Street-an-Nowan (is our village), Street, road ; An, the ; 

 Nowan, new. — The New Eoad. 



Chy-pons — CJiy, House ; Pons, Bridge. 



Botvjey — Bow, cow ; Chy or Jey, House. 



Tolcarne — Tol, Hole ; Came, Pile of Eocks. 



Tredavoe — Tre, Place ; Bavoe, of David. 



Gwa/oas — "Wintry. Gwav : winter. 



The subject of Cornish place names has been ayoU dealt 

 with by the late Dr. Bannister, of St. Day, in his valuable work 

 on the subject. Some thousands of Cornish names have there 

 been collected and dealt with. 



As to patronymics, (the Tre, Pol, Pen,) you will find Dr. 

 Oharnock's work useful, but I cannot quite accept all his 

 derivations. Mr. Bottrell, of St. Ives, made a few valuable 

 notes on Dr. Charnock's work, which I hope to see printed. 



Last but not least are the surviving relics imbedded in the 

 Cornish dialect. Of these, two valuable collections have been 

 recently made by — 



Miss Courtenay, valuable glossary of words in Cornwall, 

 published by the English Dialect Society, in 1880. 



Dr. Jago, in his recent work. 



Probably there are not a hundred Cornishmen who are 

 aware of how much of their old language is still surviving on 

 the lips or in the memory of the people. On the other hand, 

 when we try to collect the words of the Cornish dialect, we are 

 soon loaded with words in common use in other counties, 

 especially Devon, archaic-English words, and mere corruptions 

 of pronunciation. 



Still, for all that, a good deal of old Cornish still lingers 

 among our mining and fishing folk, not only in their accent, 

 pronunciation, and structure of sentences, and idiomatic 

 expressions, but even in actual words. Of these I have 



