[Spellyans] Box
Craig Weatherhill
craig at agantavas.org
Sat Oct 9 15:42:50 BST 2010
I can only imagine that they got it from Cornish speech. Kistvaen,
"stone box" would have been very much what you'd expect local farmers
to describe an exposed cist in a barrow on their land.
Craig
On 9 Hed 2010, at 15:14, nicholas williams wrote:
> 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").
>
>
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--
Craig Weatherhill
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