[Spellyans] Phonemic inventory

[Jon Mills]

At the moment, we do not have a study of Cornish that determines the 
phonemic inventory of Cornish by minimal contrast. It might be done 
by sampling today's speakers. It might be done from the data 
collected by Lhuyd. It might be done, with a high degree of 
uncertainty, by looking at the Middle Cornish texts. But, to date, we 
have no such study. Of course, there are many phonemic inventories to 
be found in various books about Cornish. However these inventories 
are conjectural, not supported by minimal contrast sets. In other 
words. they are 'because I say so' inventories. And, of course, these 
inventories differ. If your grammar is pedagogical, you might say 
this is a recommended only pronounciation; you may hear other 
speakers pronouncing Cornish differently from the recommendations in 
this grammar. If you go down this route, whether you write /@/ or [@] 
is entirely up to you.
Jon

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Dr. Jon Mills,
School of European Culture and Languages,
University of Kent