What we do with infinite labour in the upper and middle classes is to teach our children to acquire French and German as well as English, and this is not only because these tongues open to them literary treasures, but for educative purpose to the mind, teaching to acquire other words, forms of grammar, and modulation of sounds than those the children have at home.
By God's mercy the Welsh child is so situated that from infancy it has to acquire simultaneously two tongues, and that in the lowest class of life; and this I contend is an advantage of a very high order, which is not enjoyed by children of even a class above it in England.
The West Cornish dialect is a growth of comparatively recent times. It is on the outside not more than four hundred years old. Whence was it derived? That is a problem that has yet to be studied.
Mr. Jago says:--
"We have in the provincial dialect a singular mixture of old Cornish and old English words, which gives so strong an individuality to the Cornish speech. As, in speaking English, a Frenchman or a German uses more or less of the accent peculiar to each, so it is very probable that the accent with which the Cornish speak is one transferred from their ancient Cornish language. The sing-song, as strangers call it, in the Cornish speech is not so evident to Cornishmen when they listen to their own dialect."[[28]]
Sancreed screen, which must have been almost as fine as that of Burian, has disappeared all but a magnificent fragment. The church is dedicated to S. Credan, disciple of S. Petrock, an Irishman, who returned to the Emerald Isle. He was the son of S. Illogan, and he had two aunts in Cornwall--one at Camborne and the other at Stythians.
CHUN QUOIT
S. Just Church is late; it has rather handsomely carved capitals of the piers, with angels bearing shields, on which are figured the arms of the principal families connected with the parish. S. Just, as I have said, was deacon to S. Patrick, and was the tutor to S. Piran.
In Gwythian parish may be seen the early eighth-century chapel of the saint, which was for long buried under the sands, but was revealed by a drift in 1808.