[Spellyans] SWF Review

[Owen Cook]

On 19 September 2012 10:02, Christian Semmens
<christian.semmens at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Jenefer,
>
> I would also like to echo the concerns raised by Craig and Michael,
> and sadly I do not feel reassured by what you say about the make-up of
> the committee
>
> I would just like to speculate a little (as is my wont).
>
> In future, if the SWF does not provide complete parity between the KK
> and traditional forms then there is no value in using the SWF if you
> use the traditional graphs. In fact I would go further and say that it
> would be thoroughly detrimental to traditional Cornish resulting in,
> at best, a slow death sentence for the traditional forms. That would
> leave the traditional groups only two options, stay and die or walk
> away from the SWF and fight their corners again.

Or, better yet, the committee could actually make some of the hard
decisions that they ducked last time, allowing us to transcend the
whole SWF/k : SWF/t distinction. Here was one idea that got limited
play time last time around:

· For hw/wh, use wh
· For kw/qu/qw, use qw
· For k/c before {a o u}, use k
· For k/c before consonants (except w and y), use c

This would give kara, gwlaskor, kubmyas, clappya, cria, bethqweth,
whela -- all sanctioned to various degrees by the texts, systematic,
and logically defensible.

· Distribute i and y in some way that uses mostly y at the ends of
words and i mostly elsewhere. There are numerous possible ways of
doing this, which we have talked over on this list and UdnFormScrefys
at length.

There is a reason the SWF had to rechristen itself "Standard Written
Form" rather than "Single Written Form", which is that it never was a
single form. That, to my mind, was the greatest failing of Treyarnon.
There should never have been the main/traditional distinction to start
with.

~~Owen

> If the traditional groups are forced to walk away then, after all the
> expense and effort, nothing will have been gained, except for two more
> orthographies to add to the existing surfeit. There will then be
> potentially five competing orthographies in a new war. KK, SWF, UC/R,
> KS and Modern. Something to make the KK majority on the review
> committee smile, as it allows them to divide and conquer,
> rehabilitating KK as potentially the largest single faction albeit
> with losses to the new SWF.
>
> They would, by rendering the SWF useless as a vehicle for traditional
> Cornish, be able to paint the traditional groups as being the villains
> of the piece, blaming them for the collapse of the SWF process.
> Something they would be able to engineer with their built in
> majorities on the AHG and Review boards.
>
> I feel distinctly gloomy at this stage of the proceedings and the
> structure of the committee gives me little confidence that what I have
> written above is very far from what we will see after the review is
> completed.
>
> I hope I am wrong.
> Christian
>
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