Porthcurno is a small village covering a small valley and beach on the south coast of Cornwall, England in the United Kingdom. It is the main settlement in a civil and an ecclesiastical parish, both named St Levan, which comprise Porthcurno, diminutive St Levan itself, Trethewey and Treen.
Aerial view of Porthcurno Beach showing the Minack Theatre in the cliff face, Green Bay and the generally faint cliff-top course of the South West Coast Path.
Porthcurno Valley looking north showing the car park and a few of the former Engineering College buildings.
Porthcurno Bay and Logan Rock headland
Pedn Vounder beach at low tide with the Logan Rock headland behind
Cornish is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. Along with Welsh and Breton, Cornish is descended from the Common Brittonic language spoken throughout much of Great Britain before the English language came to dominate. For centuries, until it was pushed westwards by English, it was the main language of Cornwall, maintaining close links with its sister language Breton, with which it was mutually intelligible, perhaps even as long as Cornish continued to be spoken as a vernacular. Cornish continued to function as a common community language in parts of Cornwall until the mid 18th century, and there is some evidence for traditional speakers of the language persisting into the 19th century.
The first page of Vocabularium Cornicum, a 12th-century Latin-Cornish glossary
The opening verses of Origo Mundi, the first play of the Ordinalia (the magnum opus of medieval Cornish literature), written by an unknown monk in the late 14th century
Beunans Meriasek (The life of St. Meriasek) (f.56v.) Middle Cornish Saint's Play
William Bodinar's letter, dated 3 July 1776
