[Spellyans] Box

[nicholas williams]

Where did the antiquarians get the word from?
If they saw it written <kist> they would have pronounced it short.
For it to have a long vowel it would have had to be written <keest>.


On 2010 Hed 9, at 14:47, Craig Weatherhill wrote:

> Kist was used by Cornish antiquarians to describe a stone box, usually about 6 feet by 3, or a bit smaller, with a capstone, usually contained within a Bronze Age barrow and containing a cremation burial (more rarely an inhumation, such as the example at Rillaton).  Copeland Borlase and others used the word kistvaen, sometimes shortened to kist/cist.  The word was adopted into general British archaeological use as "cist" (still a hard C).  I have never heard it pronounced without a short vowel (as I in "pin").