[Spellyans] More on bys/bes words and diacritical marks
Jon Mills
j.mills at email.com
Thu Jul 10 12:43:19 BST 2008
Bodewryd' spelling "beez" is consistent with Lhuyd's "bêz" [be:z]. But
as Nicholas points out, [bi:z] is also a plausible pronunciation of
"beez". If OCV "bis truit", is Cornish, then how do we account for the
alternation of <-i-> and <-e-> in Old Cornish?Jon
----- Original Message -----
From: "nicholas williams"
To: "Standard Cornish discussion list"
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] More on bys/bes words and diacritical marks
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:21:03 +0100
But in the Bodewryd glossary we find the following:
beez — fingerbeez meas — thumbebeez beean — litell fingerbeez
creese — middle fingerbeez nessa beean — next to littel.
I am not as sure as Jon that <bis> in the OCV is indeed Welsh. We find in
the OCV bis truit 'toe' [Allax]. Truit is definitelyCornish not Welsh;
cf. truit 'foot' [Pes] and godentruit 'sole of foot' [Planta] in the same
text.
Can we be completely sure that a pronunciation [bi:z] did not occur in
Cornish?
Nicholas
On 10 Jul 2008, at 09:31, Jon Mills wrote:
Vocabularium Cornicum (76) gives "bis" glossing 'digitus'; this is
Welsh not Cornish. The Cornish word for finger is found at VC78:
"bess" glossing 'digitum'. In Beunans Meriasek this word is written
"besse". Lhuyd (AB18c) notes that several Welsh words containing <y>
have an <e> in Cornish and notes "W. Bŷs, A Finger or Toe; Corn.
Bêz." The Cornish word for finger should be written 'bes'.Jon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Mills"
To: "Standard Cornish discussion list"
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] More on bys/bes words and diacritical
marks
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:08:47 +0000
I agree that we do not need diacritics to disambiguate homonyms.
The meaning of bys/bes words is normally deduced from the
context. Words have no meaning until they are used in a context.
Consider the English word 'ring'. On its own it has no meaning,
but place it in context: 'I heard the phone ring', 'wedding ring'
'drugs ring', 'boxing ring', etc. I would prefer to see 'beys'
(world) which is attestested (Ordinalia, Beunans Meriasek,
Jordan).Jon
----- Original Message -----
From: "A. J. Trim"
To: "Standard Cornish discussion list"
Subject: [Spellyans] More on bys/bes words and diacritical
marks
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 21:49:33 +0100
I know that we have covered this topic previously but some
further discussion is required.
I assume that we want to write bÿs/bës & bys in KS because
the SWF has bys/bes & bys, and we consider that to be
“broken”, i.e. a poor feature of the SWF.
Firstly, this is because bys [bi:z]~[be:z] “world” or
“finger” could also mean [biz] “until”, so we should
like to spell them differently from each other.
However, Mary said, “I don't think I've ever muddled up
these words, I don't know the clever way to say it, but
they're just not words you confuse, they don't come in the
same places if you follow me.”
I think that Mary is correct. It’s “world” and
“finger” that is the more likely pair of meanings to get
confused. We have many words in English that could be
confused but somehow people don’t confuse them very often.
For example, “dear” can mean cherished or it can mean
expensive. Then we have “deer” which means kind of beast,
often with antlers. I do not believe that the stated reason
holds. How many other bÿs/bës type words have another
meaning with a different pronunciation?
Secondly, if you were to use ether one of these two spellings
(i.e. bys or bes), you couldn’t see that the alternative
form also exists, whereas if the choice is bÿs or bës, you
can.
The graphs <ÿ> & <ë> help the reader to understand and to
pronounce text that has been written in the alternative
dialect.
Unfortunately, this benefit is at the expense of making
Cornish of either dialect (Middle or Late) more difficult to
spell correctly, and more difficult to type.
The measure of a good “spell-as-you-say-it” orthography
is that you don’t need the dictionary to spell words that
you know how to say.
In this case, however, some of the expected <i> become <ÿ>,
and some of the expected <e> become <ë>. We shall all be
left to wonder which do, and which don’t.
The forms bïs/bës & bys would be more logical as <ï> is
long but the problem of knowing which <i> or <e> have
diereses and which don’t would be the same.
I’m not saying that diacritical marks should not be used in
Cornish, only that their use should be minimised. The
dieresis, as proposed for bÿs/bës words, could be avoided
through the use of <ei>. This would give us the choice beis &
bys. That would be simpler but the spelling problem would
remain.
The SWF designers objected to diacritical marks of any kind,
and they rejected beis but they failed to give good reasons.
In view of this, perhaps it would be best for KS to adopt
beis, regardless of the current SWF.
The spelling <ei> should become more acceptable within the
next five years because, by then, the reason for its
rejection will have faded, and it would already be in use, at
least to some extent.
Opposition to diacritical marks could increase within the
next five years. This is because (hopefully) more people will
be using Cornish, and they will have got used to writing
Cornish without writing any diacritical marks. This is
because they will be using the current SWF or continuing to
use KK, UC or UCR, none of which uses diacritical marks.
(Perhaps some people will be using KS & LRC too but they
would be a small proportion only.)
Also, the use of electronic mobile devices as an important
means of communication is likely to increase over the next
five years. These devices tend to cater poorly for accented
characters. Perhaps this is because you type with one finger
or a stylus. Perhaps the producers assume a USA market (where
diacritical marks aren’t used much.) Either way, those who
might otherwise write diacritical marks will tend to leave
them off when using these devices. I believe that those
habits will soon invade the language as a whole.
We already see a parallel effect with text messaging
abbreviations being used in company e-mails. A full keyboard
is available for the e-mails, so it is a habit that has
migrated from the mobile phone.
I think that we shall see this effect with the partial loss
of diacritical marks.
By the way, and I don't know whether this is related but I
heard that France has considered reducing use of the
circumflex, Germany is losing its double-s <ss> (ß), and
Scottish Gaelic appears to be losing its acute accents.
Regards,
Andrew J. Trim
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