[Spellyans] lyw & lew

nicholas williams njawilliams at gmail.com
Fri Feb 11 13:18:24 GMT 2011


And then there is also the question of Tregear's <lew> 'flood' and <lew> 'colour' in CW.
The form lew 'colour' means that the minimal pair liu ~ leu may not be so.
I recommend:

lyw 'colour'
lew 'lion'; in poetry and cf. the modern coinages lewes 'lioness', lewyk 'lion cub'
lew 'rudder'
liv 'flood'; cf. the plural lyvyow in CW

Neither lew 'lion' nor lew 'rudder' is attested in Middle Cornish.
The usual word for 'to drive' (a car) in revived Cornish is lewyas, but this word
is not attested. The word lêuiader 'pilot' is given by Pryce, but may derive from
Lhuyd's Welsh form llywiawdr.
The only attested word for 'to drive' in Cornish is seen in Tregear:

pan rug an tas aga dryvya in mes a paradice TH 13
Eff a ve dryvys war thyller TH 49a.

Nicholas

On 2011 Whe 11, at 13:00, Dr Jon Mills wrote:

> The SWF gives LYW for 'rudder' and gives LEW for 'lion'. The attestations for these two items are as follows.
> LYW: 'rudder', Old Cornish:  "clavus: leu pi obi" [Vocabularium Cornicum: 282];  Lhuyd (1707)  "lêụ" [48b]; "lêu" [16b]; "Lêụ gụrhal The rudder of a ship" [48b].
> LEW: 'lion', Old Cornish:  "leo: leu" [Vocabularium Cornicum: 560]; Lhuyd (1707)  "lêụ" [241b]; "† lhêụ" [78a].
> Given that the attestations for these two items are identical, should we not spell these words the same way, i.e. <lew>?
> Note: I am aware that Middle Cornish does not attest LEW and instead uses "lyon".
> Ol an gwella,
> Jon
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