[Spellyans] The Contribution of Nance
Herbie Blackburn
kevin.blackburn1 at ntlworld.com
Thu Feb 24 22:58:58 GMT 2011
I agree - my 1978 edition of his dictionary is the sole reason for my
interest in Cornish - though I do value Nicholas' dictionary as much these
days!
Ewan / Ray wrote>
To Ray's comments on Morton Nance I can only exclaim 'Amen!'
Ewan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Chubb" <ray at spyrys.org>
To: "Standard Cornish discussion list" <spellyans at kernowek.net>
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2011 9:10 AM
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] The Contribution of Nance
>
> On 23 Whe 2011, at 18:49, Eddie Climo wrote:
>
>> Nicholas (and you) feel quite at liberty to stand on the shoulders
>> of Nance and others of his generation in order to kick them in the
>> teeth, by disparaging them as "poor linguists".
>
> Eddie does have a point here although he could have expressed it in a
> more temperate way.
>
> I have recently been re-reading chapter 15 of Cornish Today by Nicholas.
>
> At 15.2 item 3 we have: "UC" (and by implication Nance) "suppresses
> variation in Middle Cornish". Later on the chapter goes on to
> criticise various grammatical structures but fails to point our that
> the main source of grammar for Unified was A.S.D Smith not Nance.
>
> Nance's 1938 dictionary is an invaluable and irreplaceable work now
> into its 5th edition, at least. As far as I can see Nance has not
> attempted to suppress anything. Sure he had to make some spelling
> choices, that's why he called it Unified Cornish, but the Celtic, for
> lack of a better description, and the loan word are given and it is up
> to the reader to make a choice. In addition many of the spelling
> variations recommended by Nicholas in UCR are given as alternatives in
> Nance's dictionary.
>
> Nance has been criticised for not being a linguist, this may be true
> but he was not a 'poor linguist' he was an adequate linguist for a
> revived language where there will always be uncertainty and more to be
> discovered. Also he was modest and was able to recognise that there
> are uncertainties; qualities that a few on this forum could do with.
>
> What he most definitely was, was a great linguistic archaeologist. In
> other words he was carefully recording the location and depth of what
> he found and putting things into the right context.
>
> Eddie is right we are standing on the shoulders of a giant and let us
> not forget that.
>
> Ray Chubb
>
> Portreth
> Kernow
>
>
> Agan Tavas web site: www.agantavas.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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