Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Bit of a waste of time and effort

Apparently the Bible has at long last been translated into Cornish a language so dead that it makes Welsh look positively vibrant and useful. As far as I'm aware the number of people who can speak or read Cornish is about at maximum 1.3% of the population and that's just a small area at the tip, huge swathes of the county cannot speak it at all and don't bother, bit like Wales, but without the silliness of having it foisted upon them by the government. In total there are an estimated 500 fluent Cornish speakers and between 3,000 and 4,000 people who can hold a conversation in the language.
Telegraph.
It has already been translated into 1,800 languages around the world, including some of mankind’s most obscure tongues, making it easily the best selling book in history.
But next year, after an epic linguistic project lasting more than 20 years, a team of translators is expected to complete what they say will be the first full and authentic version of the Bible in Cornish.
It comes more than 400 years after the completion of the King James Bible, the best known English version, and represents a landmark for Cornish identity just months after it was officially recognised as a minority on a par with Irish, Scottish and Welsh communities.
The translators, whose work was overseen by the Bible Society, say it will also finally right a historical wrong dating back 465 years.
There are lots of historical wrongs out there, doesn't mean we have to go around correcting them, although try telling the morons in Whitehall that apologising for slavery is unnecessary or the state of Africa  (currently) is now our problem. Still, if you like that sort of thing translating the Bible into a nearly dead language is a challenge and no doubt kept the scholars of the Bible Society busy and employed.
Still, no doubt this will keep the Cornish Nationalists happy until they achieve the dream of an independent Cornwall and EU status as a country.
It's certainly more than England will ever get...

3 annotations:

Dioclese said...

How do you "Fuck the fuck off!" in Cornish?

However, here's a useful phrase for your next Cornish holiday :

Re'th fo bern a vusel yn-dann dha dreys trank heb worfenn, ty vab hernenn dhivamm !

which means

May you have a pile of oxshit beneath your feet for ever, you son of a motherless pilchard!

Bet ypu won't find that in the Cornish bible. But then again....

English Pensioner said...

As long as I'm not contributing towards the cost, they can translate the Bible into any language they like.
Personally I prefer the King James version.

Ian Hills said...

Oxymoron alert!!!

"independent Cornwall and EU status"