[Spellyans] a vry

Nicholas Williams njawilliams at gmail.com
Sun Nov 3 11:03:31 GMT 2013


The expression *a vry (a vri)  'of importance, important' is common in the revived language.
It occurs in Nance's English-Cornish dictionary of 1952 and I, to my shame, followed him in my dictionary. Mea culpa.
Nance believed that *a vry lay behind the lenited vry in gwil vry a 'to esteem',
This is unlikely. The lenition is more probably a function of the noun's having originally been in the genitive.
*A vry may also in part have been suggested by the comparable phrase o fri in Welsh, e.g. 

Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi,
Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri.

*A vry is not attested anywhere as far as I can see. The attested expression is a bris:

Dyllas crist a ve rynnys pedar ran guris a neze gans peswar marreg a brys ze bub marreg ran may fe ‘The clothes of Christ were divided, four parts made of them by four soldiers of importance that each soldier might get a share’ PA 190ab
In aga herwyth yz ese vn marreg longis hynwys dal o ny wely banna ef rebea den a brys ‘Among them was a soldier called Longinus; he was blind; he saw nothing. He had been a man of importance’ PA 217ab
gromersy arluth a brys rag the roow prest yv da ‘Thank you, lord of importance, for your gifts are always good’ OM 2313-14
myr lowene ol an bys cytes rych trevow a brys castilly bras hagh huhel ol an re-ma ty a fyth ow gorthye mara mennyth ‘Behold the joy of all the world, rich cities, important towns, great and high castles. All these you shall have if you will worship me’ PC 131-35
y tethewys nans yv meys mones in hans then prasov erbyn duk magus a breys den fur in y worthebov ‘I promised a month ago to go yonder to the meadows to meet Duke Magus of importance, a wise man in his answers’ BM 3918-21
ha gans an merthus sawynans o both Dew olgallouseck saw gans coil a ran tuz a brys neb ny vyth nefra gans ny ankevys ‘and with the miraculous salvation by the will of God
Almighty, but with the…of some men of importance, which we will never forget’ Keigwin.

Regrettably the phrase *a vry is still commonly used. For example, on Cornwall 24 on the 4th October 2011 "Anselm",
answered the question whether Cornish needed a standard form as follows:

Yn-sur, kepar ha pub yeth a vri yn-dann howl.

*A vry, however, does not appear to be a native phrase, and is probably best avoided.

Nicholas


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kernowek.net/pipermail/spellyans_kernowek.net/attachments/20131103/337d6303/attachment.htm>


More information about the Spellyans mailing list