[Spellyans] Pronuncaiation

Ken MacKinnon ken at ferintosh.org
Fri Apr 26 13:02:10 BST 2013


Eoghain, a charaid,

 

My original coinage was ‘ Is fheàrr Gàidhlig bhriste na Gàidhlig na ciste’, i.e ‘Better broken Gaelic than Gaelic in its coffin’.

 

It was Ronnie Black’s suggestion that briste could be unlenited, with the sense that it is better for Gaelic to be broken than in its coffin.   I am happy with either – but the former is the original.

 

A neater and more recent suggestion is ‘ Is fheàrr Gàidhlig gharbh na marbh.’   Garbh lenites because it follows the feminine noun.  Marbh doesn’t because it is presumably in the complement after an understood bhi ?

 

-        Gans gorhemmynadow – an ken Ken

 

From: Spellyans [mailto:spellyans-bounces at kernowek.net] On Behalf Of ewan wilson
Sent: 25 April 2013 20:57
To: Standard Cornish discussion list
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] Pronuncaiation

 

Hi, Ken!

 

I'd hazard a guess that most speaker'd instinctively want to lenite to 'bhriste' as the adjective 'feels attributive' rather than predicative in this context. 

My old English teacher always told us: ' If the whole point of saying the sentence is to describe the subject by the adjective  then the adjective is predicative not attributive.'  The point of this sentence lies elsewhere, I'd have thought...

To have it unlentied would suggest to me you're saying it's better to break the Gaelic.., to get the Gaelic broken but of course  learner's intuition may be  quite wrong!   I'd welcome your thoughts.

 

Ewan. 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Ken MacKinnon <mailto:ken at ferintosh.org>  

To: 'Standard Cornish discussion list' <mailto:spellyans at kernowek.net>  

Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 2:04 PM

Subject: [Spellyans] Pronuncaiation

 

Jon,

 

Some good few years ago I concocted some words of encouragement for my then Gaelic class: Is fhearr Gaidhlig bhriste na Gaidhlig ‘na ciste.    (‘Better broken Gaelic than Gaelic in its coffin’).

 

This took off and has enjoyed a life of its own.  It sparked off a controversy as to whether briste should be aspirated or not: ’Gaidhlig bhriste…’ meaning broken Gaelic, and ‘Gaelic briste’ meaning ‘Gaelic (that is) broken..’

 

I have also seen it quoted as on ‘old Gaelic proverb’, and seen it written on a wall in Edinburgh.   Maybe it is worth a Cornish version:   ‘Gwella Kernowek terrys ages Kernowek encledhys’ ?    …..   Could be improved upon – especially re rhymes.    We could also have a controversy about spelling and pronouncing encledhys.

 

-        An ken Ken  (estuary English speaker)

 

From: Spellyans [mailto:spellyans-bounces at kernowek.net] On Behalf Of Jon Mills
Sent: 22 January 2013 10:19
To: Standard Cornish discussion list
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] cledh etc

 

We should be careful not to be overly dismissive of the way that others pronounce Cornish. Learners should be commended for attempting to speak Cornish at all. There is nothing more off-putting to a learner than being told that they do not pronounce correctly. And the person who criticises can appear supercilious and bigoted. We should remember that theories of how Cornish should be pronounced abound, and that theories of how Cornish was pronounced in past centuries are conjectural.
Ol an gwella,
Jon

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Craig Weatherhill

Sent: 01/20/13 07:03 PM

To: Standard Cornish discussion list

Subject: Re: [Spellyans] cledh etc

 

I have to agree with Jan's comment here, which isn't too optimistic about the future of  spoken Cornish.  Most of the the critics speak Cornish like a South Eastern Englishman trying to speak French,  What they  say sounds like received (received from whom?) English with unfamiliar words.  Nothing Cornish about it! 

 

Craig

 

 

 

On 2013 Gen 20, at 13:01, Janice Lobb wrote:

 

Ken, until there are examiners who are competent to judge the fluency of someone speaking with a Late Cornish "accent", I wouldn't bank on passing Grade Four speaking no matter how good you get! 

Oll an gwella

Jan

 

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Ken MacKinnon <ken at ferintosh.org> wrote:

I would very much welcome details of how to obtain Dan’s Desky Kernowek audio courses.

 

Pronunciation has been my downfall.   For this reason I failed the oral at Grade Four a few years ago and have postponed the attempt to rectify it ever since.    When I was first teaching myself Gaelic from books in the days before audio courses of any kind I found I virtually had to relearn my painfully and erroneously acquired Gaelic once again from scratch.    I have no desire to repeat the process with Cornish.  Hence my reluctance to continue further.

 

An ken Ken 

 

From: Spellyans [mailto:spellyans-bounces at kernowek.net] On Behalf Of e-mail kevin.blackburn1
Sent: 18 January 2013 15:29


To: Standard Cornish discussion list
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] cledh etc

 

 

 

On 18 January 2013 15:09, Christian Semmens <christian.semmens at gmail.com> wrote:

One of the huge problems of learning Cornish so far has been the lack of accessibility to exemplar speakers (whoever they may be) and deficiencies in the orthographies resulting in poor pronunciation.


I've been enjoying Dan's Desky Kernowek audio courses - though I'm not as aware of good and bad practice!

 

--
Kevin 'Herbie' Blackburn
Sent from my WebMail
tel: 07791193602


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_____________________________________ 
Dr. Jon Mills, 
University of Kent
http://kent.academia.edu/JonMills 

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