Researchers at Oxford university have found the earliest record of the Cornish language while working on ninth-century Anglo-Saxon writings associated with the circle of King Alfred.

Professor Malcolm Godden and Dr Rohini Jayatilaka, from the Oxford English Faculty, stumbled across the words ud rocashaas while deciphering and transcribing thousands of Latin annotations to a ninth-century manuscript of the ‘De Consolatione Philosophiae’ of Boethius.

Professor Godden said: ‘The phrase stood out because it was written in a different hand and is clearly not Latin or Old English. We consulted with colleagues at Jesus College and concluded that the annotation must be in early Welsh or a closely related language. Further study by Professor Patrick Sims-Williams, of the University of Wales, revealed that it may in fact be Cornish.’

The phrase means ‘it [the mind] hated the gloomy places’, referring to a similar comment in the Latin text of Boethius. The mind is imagined as flying up to the stars and looking down on the dark world below.

The discovery casts important light on cultural transmission in the period. The author of the text, Boethius, wrote ‘De Consolatione Philosophiae’ while under sentence of death in Pavia around 525, but the work seems to have remained unknown until it was discovered around 790. Interest then mushroomed, and it eventually became one of the great seminal texts of the Middle Ages. However, there is no trace of its presence or influence in England before the sudden appearance of an ambitious translation and adaptation around 890.

Professor Godden added: ‘The evidence of the manuscript shows that the text was being intensively studied in Britonnic-speaking areas in the late nine century, and suggests that Cornish scholarship may have played an important role in the flourishing of English culture at King Alfred’s court.’

The work was carried out as part of a project on the Alfredian translation, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The researchers are now hoping to build a complete record of early commentary on Boethius and trace its history and its influence on Anglo-Saxon culture.

From: http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/po/news/2005-06/jun/15.shtml

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