skryblans, splann, and other cornish words I use
I have explained elsewhere that my blog's name, skryblans, is a Cornish language (Kernewek) word meaning 'scribble'. I am also known as scribblans on the fediverse, which I've chosen because it makes pronouncing skryblans more obvious for English speakers – although typically I can't now lay hands on the source for that pronunciation, but I read it somewhere, I'm sure.
Following so far?
Good.
I have also used the word 'bryntin' as a name before. This is also a Kernewek language word, meaning 'excellent', and was obviously used ironically and with a massive pinch of salt, because there's no way I think of myself as excellent – it was just a mental launchpad for assuming a barmy and off-the-wall writing persona.
I also, incidentally, loved that the word included 'tin', the metal that made Cornwall a rich, successful, and cosmopolitan worldwide trading hub, even in pre-medieval times. But that's the sort of tangent that'll get this blog post completely derailed if I go much further.
In another example of Kernewek language use, my dog is called Gwynnik. This literally is gwynn – Cornish (and Welsh I think - the languages are ancestrally related) for 'white', with -ik on the end, denoting a diminutive, i.e. little.
So she was a little white thing when we got her as a pup, and is now, at nearly ten years old, a slightly bigger little white thing.
Do not be fooled though. I cannot speak Kernewek. All I have done is looked up the words I wanted on a Cornish - English dictionary site, or picked up things from local publications and articles.
Although I am Cornish, this is not unusual at all – there are still relatively few fluent speakers of the language in my home county. Once, we all spoke Kernewek and were a separate country to England, but the last time that was true was a good few hundred years ago – and it seems we haven't been as successful as the Welsh in managing to keep our language alive against the different pressures of English absorption/suppression over many hundreds of years.
I mean, the highest point in Cornwall, a hill on Bodmin Moor called Bronn Wennili (hill of swallows) in Kernewek, and what have the English changed it too? Yep, Brown Willy. Come ON!
Estimates vary wildly, but somewhere around 2500 - 5000 fluent speakers currently exist, according to the BBC – who have recently started a podcast teaching some Kernewek– out of a local population of just under 600,000.
Still, it's an improvement over just 300 estimated 'native' speakers by 1900, but there is still a long way to go to regain significant county-wide usage (and some still think Kernow should return to being an independent country).
There are a lot of Cornish people – estimates around 300,000 – who will often integrate individual common Cornish words or phrases (Dydh da - Hello!) in to their English, to feel at least a little more in touch with their unique Kernow heritage. And we're very happy to use local slang, a lot of which has distant roots in Kernewek too.
There is at least a renewal in interest though, and I'll be having a go at learning more myself.
If anyone is interested in learning more about the history of the language etc., here's a link to the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_language
Also...
You might in future see me use #Splann as a post tag. This is a hard-working Kernewek word for all kinds of splendid, which I thought I might use to replace a failed earlier initiative using #ThatWasGood.
For some reason, the tag never sat right in my mind, so hopefully giving it a Kernewek name will do the job.
The idea was to highlight something I personally felt makes me smile, an observation of something in my surroundings, perhaps an interaction with some wildlife (it won't be people after all). I'm still thinking about exactly how I'll do it.
It's just an effort to post something positive here when inspiration to write has otherwise been sparse. Hopefully it'll make me take notice of the little, real, and good, in the face of many outside forces always steering you towards the big, scary, and aarrghhh.
Everyone should enjoy a bit of splann.
post link for sharing: https://skryblans.com/skryblans-and-other-cornish-words-i-use
If you got this far, you may as well click the star below on your way out.