File NLW MS 12859B. - Letters from F. W. P. Jago

Seven holograph letters and one Christmas card, 1896-1899 and undated, from Fred[erick] W[illiam] P[earce] Jago [Cornish scholar] from Plymouth, to (as per address or by inference) H[enry] T[obit] Evans at Lampeter and Carmarthen. The letters relate largely to a mutual interest in the Cornish language. Specific points referred to include the address of a Truro bookseller who could provide recipient with books on Cornish, the writer's friendship with [the Reverend John] Bannister, variant forms of the writer's name, the death of the Cornish language owing to the pressure of English, the lack of a printed literature, etc., the survival of Cornish dialect in West Cornwall, the writer's published glossary of the Cornish dialect [The Ancient Language and the Dialect of Cornwall with an enlarged Glossary . . . (Truro, 1882)] and his English - Cornish Dictionary . . [(London, 1887)], unpublished manuscript copies of second editions of these two works which the author had offered to sell to the Royal Institute of Cornwall, the possibility that Professor [John] Rhys [of Oxford University] would assist with publication, the state of the Welsh language and the danger to it from English pressure on the eastern border and 'Forster's law of education', the need for 'at least bilingual teaching in the Welsh schools and the employment of native teachers', the lack of information relating to the use of Cornish in church services, the last sermon preached in Cornish, recipient's visit to Cornwall and newspaper articles by him describing the visit, the Breton and Manx languages, the [South African] war, and recipient's newspaper work.