Of course, people will know that Breton is the language of Brittany (albeit French is the first language as far as the French State is concerned!) across the Channel from Plymouth. Breton actually evolved from the Cornish Language and though suffering a severe decline nowadays, there are many more speakers and several all Breton language schools operated by DIWAN.
You're on target, Treeve, and you have the meaning well paraphrased. Literally, it means:The face I see I know well. In Cornish the Breton phrase would be: An tremmyn a welav yth aswonnav yn ta.
For those interested in the similarities with Cornish, much of the grammar and many of the nouns are almost identical, particularly days of the week, numbers, colours, features of the land and suchlike but, of course, where several centuries ago, Cornish and Breton fishemen could communicate fairly easily, the languages have been influenced by other languages on their doorstep.
In the case of this phrase, tremm (an dremm) means in Bretonface (the face) but in Cornish it meanslook (the look).
Mas means good or well in Breton and also means good in Cornish but in the sense of morally good or intrinsically good. It cannot mean well here therefore. Instead da is more often used to meangood in Cornish for example, an pasti ma yw da = this pasty is good but an den ma yw mas = this man is good.
Put yn in front of da, and it becomes mutated to yn ta to mean the adverb well.
Whereas there is one word for the in Cornish, Breton is greedy and has three: an, al, ar depending on what letter comes next.
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