BAGPUSS* 1800-1904**BAGPUSS 1800-1904
Pol Hodgetrans. Pol Hodge (from Cornish)
Ha pan wra mos dhe goska An Yeth,
oll hy herens a wra ynwedh.
An henwyn-le o
saw geryow distyr war vappa,
rannyethow est ha west o
saw sowsnek pedrys.
Ha'n Lyenn Kernewek
saw lyver-ledya rag an pella konteth sowsnek.
Hag An Yeth hy honan,
ha hi yn kosk,
o saw yeth varow, akademek, koth
- doustek ha tamm lows y'n folennow;
mes an werin a's karas.
 And when The Language goes to sleep,
all her friends do as well.
The place-names were
only meaningless words on a map,
dialects east and west were
only decayed English.
And the Cornish literature
only a guide book for the furthest English county.
And the Language herself,
once asleep,
was just an old, dead, academic language
- dusty and a bit loose in the pages;
but the people loved her.
* Bagpuss was a BBC childrens' television programme broadcast during the 1980s.
** Kernewek (the Cornish language) was a dead language between 1880 and 1904
i.e. nobody spoke, or knew how to speak it.
Copyright © Pol Hodge 1996 - publ. Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek Fentenwynn 







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