[Spellyans] Front unrounded vowels, was: The quantity system

[nicholas williams]

And worse still <bys> 'world' is pronounced bizz by ex-KK speakers  
(e.g. Matthew Clarke).
Bizz is an error as is privv for prëv. In order to make it clear that  
the vowel is different from
that in bys 'until', bës is a reasonable compromise. It doesn't alter  
the word itself.
Lhuyd used circumflexes that were unknown in the traditional language.

The absence of diacritics in the SWF is because the KK users insisted  
on their omission.
This was because KK lacks them and (according to KK mythology/ 
propaganda) doesn't need them.
The mere fact that pronunciations like *privv and *bizz occur, is  
indication that KK and now the SWF
need(ed) diacritics.

The reason for the absence of diacritics in KK and thus SWF is simply  
that English is without them.
Inconsistently KK users repudiate English borrowings in the lexicon,  
but embrace this
English spelling convention in the orthography.

Cornish phonology is complicated and varied now in dialect. We cannot  
manage without
diacritics and it is not sensible to pretend that we can.

Better a diacritic on an attested spelling e.g. bës 'world' than an  
entirely unattested spelling.

Nicholas
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