[Spellyans] <y>, <i>, etc

[nicholas williams]

To say that <i> is short in tiryow is disingenuous. It is short  
because it's in a disyllable
and is derived from the monosyllabic <tir>.
Those used to KK will not buy into gwinn but bys. They think bys is  
short anyway.

Nicholas

On 25 Jul 2008, at 11:47, Owen Cook wrote:

> 2008/7/25 nicholas williams <njawilliams at gmail.com> rug scrifa:
>> The problem with Cornish orthography is that we have too few  
>> letters and too
>> many possible sounds to represent.
>> We will either have to endure ambiguity on the one hand or  
>> diacritics on the
>> other. There is no other choice.
>
> Agreed. Let's have diacritics. I have no problem with that. (But <res>
> and <rës> are both unambiguous; both must be long.)
>
>> As far as I understand it the proposal is to avoid having to write  
>> ÿ in
>> words like bÿs, ÿs, etc. by using
>> y only for the sound that may also be e, e.g. bys/bës; but writing  
>> bis
>> 'until' with <i>. And also gwinn 'white',
>> me/my a vinn, etc.
>
> Nope, that's not the proposal I've been floating since yesterday. I'm
> a diacriticophile, so I have added <ì> back into the mix. But Dan's
> original incarnation was diacritic-free. We would have just have bìs
> and bys/bes where length is indicated normally just as for every other
> vowel in our system (i.e. depending on the following consonant). As
> for disentangling res words from rys/res words, we would just have to
> put up with the ambiguity. Not ideal, but this is the same ambiguity
> that we currently have with s/j. If I'm a RMC user reading a RLC text,
> I can't automatically substitute <s> in my mind for every <j> I see.
> Same goes for ow/ew -- I can't automatically substitute <ew> for every
> <ow>.
>
>> Now, however, it is being suggested that <y> should be long and <i>  
>> short.
>> This is not wise, to say the very least.
>
> KK, UC and UCR always had long <y>. The SWF does too. And so does KS,
> in the form of <ÿ>.
>
> Both the SWF and KS have short <i> in words like tiryow.
>
> Oll an gwelha,
> ~~Owen
>
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