Raven in Cornish?

[Fitheach]

How do you say Raven in Cornish? I read somewhere it's VRAN, but I wanted to check with you all. I know that the symbol of Cornwall is a cousin of Raven, the Cornish Chough - Palores in Cornish.

[dreamguardian]

It's Bran in Welsh & can mutate to Fran, pronounced vran.

[Fitheach]

Thank you, Dreamguardian. Interestingly, Bran is a universal Celtic word for Raven. It's old Gaelic for Raven, as well!

[dreamguardian]

My mistake.

It's actually cigfran = raven & translates as meat crow & bran is crow!

[Kernos]

_________

Thank you, Dreamguardian. Interestingly, Bran is a universal Celtic word for Raven. It's old Gaelic for Raven, as well!

Interesting question, Fitheach. I found this site, Celtic Male Names of Cornwall which is interesting in itself.

The pertinent name is

Branwalather — (bran-wa-LATH-uhr) from Cornish bran "raven" + walather "leader". A saint and son of a Cornish king named Kenen.

The Following defination is taken from The Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum: A DICTIONARY OF THE ANCIENT CELTIC LANGUAGE OF CORNWALL 1865 which has been digitized:
(the 'a''s in the actual dictionary are 'á'. The OCR may not be not quite accurate, as 'Raven may be "Bran erás" and not "Bran was". But the Cornish

"WAS, s. m. A servant, a fellow. An cuth was gof, the old smith fellow. P.C. 1695. Ty a'n guysk avel cauch was, thou strikest like a coward. P.C. 2103. Tywan, dm gynen yn mes a dhcsempys, thou fellow, come with us out immediately. R.D. 1827. A mutation of gwas, qd. v."

And there is a relationship with Raven and Servant. So, perhaps Raven is Brán was. ANd, there is no 'erás' in this lexicon.

I suggest you compare the PDF version with the TXT version.

BRAN, s. f. A crow. PI. bryny. Bran was, a raven,
i.e. a great crow, called also marchvran. Bran dre, a
town crow. Gallas an glaw dhe ves gwldn, ha'n dour
my a gres basseys ; da yw yn mes dyllo bran, mars es dor
sech war an beys, the rain is clean gone away, and the
water, I believe, abated ; it is well to send out a crow,
if it be dry ground over the world. O. M. 1099. Does
ny vynnas an vrdn vrds, neb carryn hya gafas, the raven
would not return, some carrion she has found. C.W.
178. Hos, payon, colom, grugyer, bargos, bryny, ha'n er,
moy dredhofa vydh hymvys, duck, peacock, pigeon, par-
tridge, kite, crows, and the eagle further by me are
named. O.M. 133. W. bran, pi. brain. Arm. bran,
pl. brini. Ir. bran. Gael. bran. Slav, vran, wran.

Kernos

[ennys]

In Breton it is bran, ar vran (raven, the raven), 'cause raven is a female word...

I'm having here a Cornish-english dictionairy, that says that bran, plural brini, means crow, and bran vras 'big crow' means raven. So brini bras for the plural 'ravens'. I have no dictionairy the other way around so can't really check up for synonyms, sorry. But I am pretty sure this is the right word, as it is in all the surviving celtic languages.

For fans of historical linguistics: Brythonic *brana

xx
Ennys

[Kernos]

Actual scan of Bran vran (?was, ?eran) and marchvran

bran-cornish-brit-lexicon.png (27.16 KiB) Viewed 1852 times

I think you are right ennys. The letters between Bran and the comma are not very distinct, But, it is could be vras was or eras; marchvran is below.

[Fitheach]

Thank you all for your responses! (I collect raven names . . .)

[ennys]

bran-cornish-brit-lexicon.png

I think you are right ennys. The letters between Bran and the comma are not very distinct, But, it is could be vras was or eras; marchvran is below.

It must be vras, but indeed it is difficult to see. But I want to thank you for that link!

[AndyN]

It's bran vras. The vras bit is bras, meaning great, mutated - the first letter has changed because it follows the word bran.. So bran vras means literally great crow and is the Cornish for raven.

Andy N

[Kernos]

Thanks Andy. Good to hear from you again.

Bill
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