[Spellyans] <kk> and <ck>

[Michael Everson]

On 17 Dec 2008, at 22:43, Thomas Leigh wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 11:41 AM, nicholas williams <njawilliams at gmail.com 
> > wrote:
> Do the members of the AHG really know which words are loanwords and  
> which not?
>
> Also, at what point does a loanword become a native word in the  
> minds of a language's speakers?

When it violates Ken George's ideas of "English borrowings for which  
there are perfectly good Cornish alternatives". For my part I trust  
Tregear's choices more than I trust George's.

> For example, when did the words "native" and "language" in my  
> previous sentence stop being French loanwords, and start being  
> English words? How can one tell?

One can observe in the texts when "native" replaced "homely" and  
"language" "tongue", but one can only guess about speakers. Except  
that we do know in extreme bilingualism speakers will always use the  
word closest to the tip of the tongue.

> All in all Hodge's suggestion was bizarre. Even more remarkably it  
> was accepted.

I suspect they were tired, and no one was there to say "hold on, now,  
this is going to suck for students, you don't want it."

If only we'd called their bluff.

> I have to agree. I could understand them choosing <kk> for the  
> "main" form — following KK usage — and <ck> for the "traditional"  
> form, but to impose both spellings on both orthographic varieties on  
> the basis of etymology is just, well, bizarre, as you said. I too  
> find it amazing that the AHG voted to accept it!

I've been doing other things this evening but will forward my  
recommendations in the morning.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com