Pronunciation of Station names - Launceston

David Bennetts (davibenn@pcug.org.au)
14 Feb 98 22:57:16 GMT

For those interested in pronunciation of the original Launceston, I have
opened up a lively forum on the Cornish Culture newsgroup about this
subject - please see soc.culture.cornish. Note that the archaic spelling
was Lanson, Cornwall had its own Celtic language, now being revived. The
last Cornish speaker came from a little village near Mousehole - pronounced
MAO (as in Chairman) z'l. This is near Penzance, the western terminus of
God's Wonderful Railway.

At this stage we're still awaiting a local Launcestonian reply, but at the
moment only one respondent has put a 't' in the pronunciation.

English place names and surnames have wonderful idiosyncracies, if
Cholmondoley is pronounced Chumley, then why isn't Bottomley pronounced
Bumley?

David