Welcome to Cornish Language Online
This website gives you information about organisations who offer lessons, news, and support to Cornish speakers, learners and companies.
What is the Cornish Language?
The Cornish language is a Celtic language. It is similar to Welsh and Breton. Cornish, Welsh and Breton are thought of as 'P-Celtic' languages or Brythonic languages. Cornish is also related to 'Q-Celtic' languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. The way to quickly tell these languages apart is to look at words such as the translation of the English word 'son' and 'head'.
| ENGLISH | P-Celtic | Q-Celtic |
| Son | Map/Mab | Mac |
| Head | Pen/Penn | Ceann |
There is a great deal of cross over in vocabulary and grammar between all of the six Celtic languages. The most fundamental piece of grammar which Cornish shares with all of the Celtic languages is: 'mutations'. Mutations are where the initial letter or letters in a word are altered depending on what comes before them. You can see this happening in many Cornish placenames:
Porthmeor /Ponsmere
'Meor/mere' means 'large'. However there is also 'Veor' in Camborne. There was probably an element before this name originally which mutated it.
Porthpean/Trevean
'Bean' means 'little'. You can see that 'Porth' (harbour) does not alter the beginning of the next element, where 'Tre' (town/homestead/farm/settlement) does. The Cornish word for 'the'(an) causes mutation in feminine singular words. 'Tre' is feminine and thus mutates after 'an'. This explains places in Cornwall such as 'Pedn-an-drea' (Penn an dre). From what I have already explained so far, you can see that this means: 'head (of) the town' – literally: townsend.