Cornish notes for beginners by Neil Kennedy
5.1 Pes? How many?
We can use pes with ez to ask how many are there?
Es cader ez?
How many chairs are there?
Note that we use the singular chair, not chairs.
Here are the numbers from 1 to 20:
There are special feminine forms of 2, 3 & 4: diw, tair, peder (in practice there is little or no difference in pronunciation between deaw and diw). There are three forms of 1: onen is used as a noun (ma onen: there's one); edn is used before a noun (ma edn tavarn en drea: there's one pub in town); on is a contraction of onen which we use when counting.
Pes dean ez en scath? … Ma wheeh dean en scath.
How many people are there in the boat? … There are six people in the boat.
Pes beuh ez en park? … Ma tair beuh en park.
How many cows are there in the field … There are three cows in the field.
Pes pesk ez en moar? … Ah, ma lias pesk en moar.
How many fish are there in the sea? … Ah, There are many fish in the sea.
lias is many.
Pes aval ez war an skoran? … ma pemp aval... onen, deaw, try, pager, pemp.
How many apples are there on the branch? … There are five apples... one, two, three, four, five.
Note: We follow numbers with a singular noun so instead of saying five apples we say five apple: pemp aval.
5.2 Mutation (letter changes) after numbers
edn (one) causes softening of the first letter of a feminine word, in the same way as an does.
deaw/diw (two) causes softening of the first letter of a following word whether it is masculine or feminine.
try/tair (three) causes breathed or apirate mutation (another kind of mutation) of the first letter of a following word, as follows:
- c and k become h (although this is frequently ignored if the word starts with co-).
- p sometimes becomes f (irregularly observed).
- t is rarely changed to th.
The other numbers do not cause mutation.
5.3 Pana prez ew? What time is it? (pana: also spelt puna)
Ouja is after. Use ouja to translate past, just as dialect speakers used to say five after three etc.
(Note: ouja - after - is spelt ouga, udga or ugge in some older books.)
Note: Soft mutation is sometimes observed after dha/da although you can normally ignore it in Late Cornish.
Other ways to ask questions:
You can tack on me a pejy/pedgy or mar pleag if you want to say please.
[ Instead of ar gloh users of Unified and Kemmyn prefer ere (hour) and may ask P'ere ew? rather than pana prez ew?. ]
5.4 Parts of the day & night
5.5 More expressions of time
Dedhiow an seithan
Days of the week
Miziow an vledhan
Months of the year
We normally put miz (month) in front of the names of the months.