[Spellyans] Spelling and linguistics - Yes
janicelobb at tiscali.co.uk
janicelobb at tiscali.co.uk
Wed Jun 16 12:59:14 BST 2010
This is what we in the Cussel have been saying until we are blue in the face. RLC should be taught first as the colloquial/conversational form of Cornish, with simplified grammar and spelling (authentic, naturally), progressing to the more literary forms of UC/UCR when the children (and adults) have become proficient in that. I'm sure there would be far fewer drop-outs.Jan
----Original Message----
From: brynbow at btinternet.com
Date: 16/06/2010 9:09
To: "Standard Cornish discussion list"<spellyans at kernowek.net>
Subj: Re: [Spellyans] Spelling and linguistics - Yes
Thanks for the comments, Ewan. Literary Welsh
indeed makes more use of inflected verbs, but not, I think, to be
particularly Latinate. All the Celtic languages were quite highly inflected,
just as was Latin. And they have become simplified in speech. (How did
they get so highly inflected in the first place?!) Your description of the
difficulties of learning the UC of Nance makes the point. Nance's UC produced
few really fluent speakers. That is why Dick Gendall turned to Late Cornish
which Jenner also considered a legitimate part of the heritage. As I said
before, KK only tried to improve UC's orthography to make it easier to get the
pronunciation right. In this he was unsuccessful because few follow all of his
guidelines. What really concerns me is the problem of what register should be
used in primary schools because it seems that this hasn't been discussed. Maybe
the Partnership's two new education officers are thinking about it. Literary
Welsh is not used in Welsh primary schools. It was realised in the 50's and 60's
that this didn't work and steps were successfully taken to improve the
situation. Successful learners, and of course L1 speakers gradually come
to more literary versions of the language as they read more widely. So, to come
back to 'Spellyans', if an officially acceptable orthography
is not worked out for all aspects of RLC then as Craig suggested, the SWF
favoured by mainly KK followers, and the formal language that goes with it, will
take precedence in 2013. How many fluent Cornish infants will come out of that?
Or am I overstating the case and being too negative? What do other people on
this list think? Michael, what do you think?
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From:
ewan wilson
To: Standard Cornish discussion list
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 10:41
PM
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] Spelling and
linguistics - Yes
Well, Chris , I'm glad somebody has had the
same idea about there being a parallel with the Welsh Literary-
Colloquial division. To be honest, the Welsh I've learned has been the 'Gog'
colloquial version. Looking at the more literary Welsh, it strikes me it maybe
aspires to be more 'Latinate' with its more elaborate accidence, word order,
etc whereas the colloquial has to some extent 'simplified'.
I've just been galloping back through good, old
Cornish Simplified and one is remnded by Lesson 17 of the sheer 'finickness'
of the language with its various verbal particles, compounded by the quite
complex mutation systems. These all have to juggled in ones head, along with a
half decent stab at pronunciation and I have nothing but admiration for those
who have managed it. However it is an impressive achievement of Nance and
I think it desrves our best effort. The one ting that does go through my
mind is would this really be the form of Cornish that Dolly Pentreath and the
later users would readily recognise? Or would they more easily align with the
Late Cornish of Gendall, et al?
I think the one of the beauties of UCR is
its ready assimilation of the actual Late(-ish!) English borrowings which
far from diluting the language seem to give it added, distinctively
Cornish pungency, oddly enough!
I was watching a Scottish Gaelic TV programme
this evening and it struck me the amount of English two native
speakers had to insert into their conversation eg, 'upside down', 'slug
pellets', 'keeping up with the Jones's'( maybe this last is Welsh?!). Is this
necessarily a sign of 'decay' or simple lack of advanced literacy? After all,
travelling on a bus daily, one can hear lots of English conversation with
fairly restricted vocabulary bases!!
Ewan.
----- Original Message -----
From:
Chris
Parkinson
To: Standard Cornish discussion list
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 9:25
AM
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] Spelling and
linguistics - Yes
Maybe I need to say now that an interest in
linguistics certainly does not mean that I think KK was ever a good idea.
What I do think is that Ewan's thought is right and that UC is a
literary form of the language and RLC is like the spoken form - of the same
language, which corresponds to the picture in Welsh. KK is a different way
of spelling UC. Isn't it? I'm not sure how UCR fits into this picture.
But RLC needs to be written down, which raises problems. What for example is
to happen to the verbal particle 'ow'? RLC leaves it out or reduces it to
'a'. Would this be acceptable using SWF, or in using KS for that
matter. Chris
----- Original Message -----
From:
Christian Semmens
To: Standard Cornish discussion list
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 9:01
AM
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] Spelling and
linguistics - Yes
Hi Ray,
It is amazing when you first try
it.
However, it does require full familiarity with the language to
do it. And as Chris says, it certainly wouldn't help a learner pronounce
English, not that English does a good job of that anyway!
:)
Christian
_______________________________________________
Spellyans
mailing list
Spellyans at kernowek.net
http://kernowek.net/mailman/listinfo/spellyans_kernowek.net
_______________________________________________
Spellyans mailing
list
Spellyans at kernowek.net
http://kernowek.net/mailman/listinfo/spellyans_kernowek.net
_______________________________________________
Spellyans mailing
list
Spellyans at kernowek.net
http://kernowek.net/mailman/listinfo/spellyans_kernowek.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kernowek.net/pipermail/spellyans_kernowek.net/attachments/20100616/6542aff4/attachment.htm>
More information about the Spellyans
mailing list