New Testament Translated Into Near-Extinct Cornish
The first translation of the New Testament from the original Greek into Cornish, the Celtic language akin to Welsh and Breton, was announced Friday
. Cornish nearly died out in the 18th and 19th centuries but was revived in the 20th. There are thought to be some 400 fluent speakers of the language today, along with another 4,000 or so who have some knowledge of it.
Whereas Wales was rather grudgingly allowed the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer in Welsh under Queen Elizabeth I, Cornwall had an English liturgy and Bible imposed on it following the Reformation--a factor which many believe encouraged the demise of the language.
Indeed, in the 1549 revolt against the imposition of the Book of Common Prayer, one of the objections of the Cornish rebels was that they did not understand English.
The launch of the Cornish New Testament took place in St. Petroc's church, in Cornwall, the county at the southwest tip of England. A service to mark the appearance of "An Testament Nowydh" (Cornish for The New Testament) will be held in Truro Cathedral on Nov. 28, the first Sunday of Advent, with the participation of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, himself a Welsh-speaker.
The project of producing a Cornish Bible has its origins in initiatives by the ecumenical advisory group on Cornish language services set up in 1974 by the bishop of Truro, Graham Leonard, and his suffragan, Bishop Richard Rutt of St. Germans.
While the first translation into Cornish of a book of the New Testament appeared in 1936, and others sporadically from 1976 onwards, serious work began in 1996 with the aim of publishing a complete New Testament in 2004, the centenary of the publication of Henry Jenner's "A Handbook of the Cornish Language," regarded as the start of the modern revival.
Work is now going ahead on the Old Testament, and since 1997 several books have appeared in Cornish, including Exodus, the Psalms, Esther, Lamentations, the Song of Songs, and among the prophets Amos, Habakkuk, Zephaniah and Haggai.
Several of the early Bible translations were not done from the original biblical languages and have been revised to correspond to the Greek or Hebrew.
According to project coordinator Keith Syed, the somewhat surprising experience of the translators is that "Hebrew seems to go more easily into Cornish than does Greek." He suggests this may be because "Hebrew tends to be more concrete and to have a more straightforward syntax" whereas Greek (especially in the Epistles) "has a good deal of abstract thought which is sometimes difficult to render accurately."
In Cornwall about a dozen church services take place in Cornish each year, including three carol services around Christmas.
The use of Cornish is not, however, confined to language enthusiasts. Viewers of a special Christmas Day program of "The Simpsons" being made for Britain will see Lisa running around shouting: "Rydhsys rag Kernow lemmyn!" ("Freedom for Cornwall now!") and "Kernow bys vykken!" ("Cornwall forever!").
Robert Nowell
Religion News Service
London, Aug. 13--(RNS)
. Cornish nearly died out in the 18th and 19th centuries but was revived in the 20th. There are thought to be some 400 fluent speakers of the language today, along with another 4,000 or so who have some knowledge of it.
Whereas Wales was rather grudgingly allowed the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer in Welsh under Queen Elizabeth I, Cornwall had an English liturgy and Bible imposed on it following the Reformation--a factor which many believe encouraged the demise of the language.
Indeed, in the 1549 revolt against the imposition of the Book of Common Prayer, one of the objections of the Cornish rebels was that they did not understand English.
The launch of the Cornish New Testament took place in St. Petroc's church, in Cornwall, the county at the southwest tip of England. A service to mark the appearance of "An Testament Nowydh" (Cornish for The New Testament) will be held in Truro Cathedral on Nov. 28, the first Sunday of Advent, with the participation of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, himself a Welsh-speaker.
The project of producing a Cornish Bible has its origins in initiatives by the ecumenical advisory group on Cornish language services set up in 1974 by the bishop of Truro, Graham Leonard, and his suffragan, Bishop Richard Rutt of St. Germans.
While the first translation into Cornish of a book of the New Testament appeared in 1936, and others sporadically from 1976 onwards, serious work began in 1996 with the aim of publishing a complete New Testament in 2004, the centenary of the publication of Henry Jenner's "A Handbook of the Cornish Language," regarded as the start of the modern revival.
Work is now going ahead on the Old Testament, and since 1997 several books have appeared in Cornish, including Exodus, the Psalms, Esther, Lamentations, the Song of Songs, and among the prophets Amos, Habakkuk, Zephaniah and Haggai.
Several of the early Bible translations were not done from the original biblical languages and have been revised to correspond to the Greek or Hebrew.
According to project coordinator Keith Syed, the somewhat surprising experience of the translators is that "Hebrew seems to go more easily into Cornish than does Greek." He suggests this may be because "Hebrew tends to be more concrete and to have a more straightforward syntax" whereas Greek (especially in the Epistles) "has a good deal of abstract thought which is sometimes difficult to render accurately."
In Cornwall about a dozen church services take place in Cornish each year, including three carol services around Christmas.
The use of Cornish is not, however, confined to language enthusiasts. Viewers of a special Christmas Day program of "The Simpsons" being made for Britain will see Lisa running around shouting: "Rydhsys rag Kernow lemmyn!" ("Freedom for Cornwall now!") and "Kernow bys vykken!" ("Cornwall forever!").
Robert Nowell
Religion News Service
London, Aug. 13--(RNS)
posted by R7 | 8/26/2004 09:00:00 PM
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