Arthur Saxon Dennett Smith (27 February 1883 – 22 November 1950) was a Cornish
bard
In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's a ...
, writer and linguist, known by the bardic name Caradar. He taught Modern Languages at Blundell's School,
Tiverton, Devon
Tiverton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Devon, England, and the commercial and administrative centre of the Mid Devon district. The population in 2019 was 20,587.
History Early history
The town's name is conjectured to derive from "Twy-for ...
.
He was born in
Hurstpierpoint
Hurstpierpoint is a village in the Mid Sussex district, in the county of West Sussex, England, southwest of Burgess Hill, and west of Hassocks railway station. It sits in the civil parish of Hurstpierpoint and Sayers Common which has an ...
, Sussex, England, the elder of two sons to Harriet Annie and Arthur Smith. His father was from Sussex and his mother from Gloucestershire.
[''1901 England Census''] He became a collaborator with
Robert Morton Nance
Robert Morton Nance (1873–1959) was a British writer and leading authority on the Cornish language, a nautical archaeologist, and joint founder of the Old Cornwall Society.
Nance wrote many books and pamphlets on the Cornish language, incl ...
and
Henry Jenner
Henry Jenner (8 August 1848 – 8 May 1934) was a British scholar of the Celtic languages, a Cornwall, Cornish cultural activist, and the chief originator of the Cornish language revival.
Jenner was born at St Columb Major on 8 August 1848. H ...
on the ''Gerlyver noweth Kernewek ha Sawsnek'' (
Cornish-
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Culture, language and peoples
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
* ''English'', an Amish ter ...
dictionary). He compiled several grammars to make learning Cornish easier and edited some of the surviving Cornish texts. He also wrote an important series of books aimed at teaching
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, of or about Wales
* Welsh language, spoken in Wales
* Welsh people, an ethnic group native to Wales
Places
* Welsh, Arkansas, U.S.
* Welsh, Louisiana, U.S.
* Welsh, Ohio, U.S.
* Welsh Basin, during t ...
to English speakers.
In 1927, he married Dorothea Sophia Bazeley. He died in
Worthing
Worthing ( ) is a seaside town and borough in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 113,094 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Br ...
and is buried at
Amberley, Sussex.
Works
*1925: ''Welsh Made Easy : a self-instructor for use in the home'' (in three parts) : Wrexham : Hughes & Son
*1939: ''Cornish Simplified'' (''Kernewek Sempelhes'')
*1948: ''Whethlow an Seyth Den Fur a Rom''
*1951: ''Tristan and Isolt in Cornish verse''
*1946: ''Nebes Whethlow Ber''
*1969: ''The Story of the Cornish Language'' (''Whedhel an Yeth Kernewek'')
* ''How to Learn Cornish'' (''Fatell dhyskir Kernewek'')
References
External links
*
* EKOS Ltd; SGRÚD Research
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, A. S. D.
1883 births
1950 deaths
Cornish-language writers
Bards of Gorsedh Kernow
20th-century British writers
People from Hurstpierpoint