THE 1,000th Cornish street sign has been put up in Looe

A street by any other name in Looe, near Plymouth | Plymouth Herald

The sign for Marina Drive, with its Cornish translation, Rosva Vorek, was erected on January 29.

Since its inception in 2010 the place-name and street signage panel of the Cornish Language Partnership has provided 1,000 Cornish language translations for street names all across the county.

A few streets in Cornwall were historically named in Cornish when the language was more widely spoken.

Some were named in Cornish in the 1930s and more still during the later part of the 20th Century.

The former Kerrier and Carrick district councils erected more than 600 signs, and tt is now estimated that 17per cent of the signs in Cornwall are in Cornish or are bilingual.

Cornwall Council encourages developers to name new streets in Cornish and in other cases to ensure that streets are named bilingually.

Julian German, Cornwall Council’s portfolio holder for economy and culture, said: “The Cornish language is an important part of Cornwall’s heritage and was recognised officially in 2003.

“Since then the use of Cornish is growing in all walks of life and the opportunities to learn and use it are increasing all the time.”

What's in a name

Rosva is the Cornish word for a drive. It is made up of ‘ros’, the word for wheel, and ‘-va’ a suffix meaning ‘place’, so literally ‘Wheel-place’.

‘Mor’ is the word for ‘sea’ in Cornish and whilst ‘-ek’ turns it into an adjective, so ‘morek’ literally means ‘sea-like’.

Like most languages, nouns in Cornish have a gender and are either masculine or feminine. In this case ‘rosva’ is feminine.

In certain cases the first letter of an adjective is changed, or mutated, after a feminine noun. So in this case Rosva Morek becomes Rosva Vorek.

Read more: http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/street/story-20603332-detail/story.html#ixzz2tDSTWIzx