[Spellyans] Broth and cabbage

[Michael Everson]

On 18 Nov 2010, at 00:36, Daniel Prohaska wrote:

> I see a diphthong in the latter’s attested forms…

Good for you, Dan! 

On the other hand, in the Revived language, people like to distinguish the two, and have done so for a very long time indeed.

In KS we write cawl 'broth' [kaʊl] and caul 'cabbage' [kɔːl] because this is how we pronounce these words.

These were UC cowl 'broth' [kaʊl] and cawl 'cabbage' [kɔːl] respectively.

Lhuyd gives kaụl 241a and kowl 231c for 'broth'

Lhuyd gives kaụl 33a and kaol 45a for 'cabbage'.

Kennedy writes cowl and caol.

Gendall writes cawl "[kæul]" and caul "[kɐːl]" (his transcriptions answer to UC/UCR/KS [kaʊl] and [kɔːl]).

Since Revivalists distinguish the two words, and since George is doubtful of what to do ("Did the words for 'cabbage' and 'soup' fall together in Cornish? This is one of the vexing questions that cannot be answered without trad. native speakers. The problem may be avoided by using ongel for 'cabbage' and soubenn for 'soup'."), the SWF should not use KK's kowl and kowl for both. 

In the SWF, 'broth' should be spelt cawl [kaʊl], and 'cabbage', well, it should be spelt caul, but in the absence of an au graph it should remain cowl.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/