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A New Cornish-English and English-Cornish Dictionary

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This is a facsimile reprint of a book originally published early in the 20th century, before the spelling and pronunciation reforms of Common Cornish, so it will look strange to anyone familiar with the modern language. It was a historically important work, citing every Cornish word known from the texts in every variant form and neologisms derived from Welsh and Breton (these are marked with an asterisk). Consequently, this dictionary is not recommended for those who only wish to be part of the modern Cornish language community, but it is a treasure-house of information for those interested in earlier phases of the language.

In recent years, many languages thought dying or dead have been revived and the number of native-speakers of these languages has greatly increased, particularly among the Celtic languages of the British Isles. One of these has been the ancient and extinct language of Cornwall, thrilling for me as I may have a West Countryman or two in my family tree.

I should say at the outset that I am not a trained linguist, so I do not know if the principles undergirding this book are sound or not. But they seem to be. This dictionary will go far toward keeping Cornish alive, perhaps even extending its influence to Cornishmen on this side of the Atlantic. Highly recommended.