[Spellyans] consel

nicholas williams njawilliams at gmail.com
Mon Feb 2 08:54:32 GMT 2009


Further on the Cornish word for 'counsel/council'

The new unitary authority in Cornwall will no doubt be called Consel  
Kernow/Konsel Kernow in Cornish.
There are three problems with such a title.

In the first place the word *consel does not appear to be attested.
conseler occurs four times in the Ordinalia and conselar once.
*Consel seems to have been derived from it by Nance.
Nance [1938] cites MC (i.e. Pascon agan Arluth) as his source for  
consel, but
I have been unable so far to find *consel in the poem.

In the second place it is clear from the texts that the
Cornish for 'council' (Latin concilium) is the same as
the word for 'counsel' (Latin consilium). We have the two
examples in SA:

Kvsell a(n) Nice SA 65a
Cucell a Nice SA 65a.

Both refer to the Council of Nicaea of AD 325.

Kusul/Cusul (KS Cùssul) would be a more authentic word to use than  
Konsel/Consel.

The third problem is that the sequence -ns- between vowels
is pronounced -nz- in such words as ankombrynsi, ankensi,
ganso, gensi, in the SWF but in this word it must be
-ns-. Why is Konsel not ['konz at l]? If the SWF wanted to
be phonetic, it would surely write Koncel/Concel Kernow.
The SWF also writes <avonsyans> [the word was so spelt
on a display at the Keskusulyans] whereas KS writes <avauncyans>,
which is a properly phonetic spelling.

Nicholas

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