[Spellyans] Suffix -yeth in KS

Mon Jun 10 14:32:14 BST 2013

Well Ewan...thanks for your lovely comments with regards to Lyver Lavarow
Dhe Les... it was of course intended to be light and humorous to encourage
students to use more Cornish. It is only of use to beginners and the vocab
and sentence construction is designed to be simple for that end. There are
often better ways for expressing yourself when your vocab has improved and
you have moved beyond the basic grammar used for instance by beginners who
are using or were using the language board 4 yr graded system.
The answer to your question re a grammar book is this.... I along with Agan
Tavas, have done a lot of work towards publishing a 1st year grammar
book...this has completely been scuppered by the SWF and the way everything
has been in limbo for the last 2 or 3 years. The grammar was using UC , the
favoured form of Agan Tavas. Of course the spelling system should in my
opinion have no influence on the grammar... as I am sure Nicholas will
agree... but others seem to have bent the grammar to suit themselves and
their system...and indeed seem to have invented a totally new language
based on direct translation from English grammar with no reference at all
to the beautiful poetic idiomatic language that Cornish is.
I am not sure I absolutely agree with the 'crap cornish is better than no
cornish at all'  promoters....sorry, but I have little hair left to pull out
Kemereugh wyth
Clive
On Jun 4, 2013 11:31 PM, "ewan wilson" <butlerdunnit at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> I find myself in major agreement with Craig's reasoning here.
> And I have to agree that the HW combo is a monstrosity.
> It's also fascinating to learn that many of the old KK guard- grammarians
> and poets etc., have faded from the scene. I wonder if the superior
> scholarship so manifest of the champions of the more trad 'schools' may at
> last be coming home to roost in underminining the old KK certainties and
> confidence and so disincentivising old activists?
> Wouldn't it be tragic if Cornish ultimately got lumbered with an
> orthography heavily influenced by a base few continued to find convincing
> enough even to themselves to promote?
> Can anyone tell me if Clive Baker has ever produced a 'full' grammar
> course? I always find if I get too rusty the best remedy is to dig out his
> highly entertaining and yet instructive Lyver Lavarow Dhe Les!!
> Who could match, for instance, his
> ' Asen da of-vy '= 'I make a good donkey' in his Ow mos Prena vocab?!
> or 'Dyllas ruber ha gwasonyeth' in the hobbies section..and
> ' Ha kens oll a wra myras dres an treth dywyskyth-na, hep dowt..'
>
> Now that's linguistic entertainment!
>
> Ewan.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Craig Weatherhill" <
> craig at agantavas.org>
> To: "Standard Cornish discussion list" <spellyans at kernowek.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2013 12:45 AM
> Subject: Re: [Spellyans] Suffix -yeth in KS
>
>
>  This does not fill me with confidence.  Jenefer needs to get a grip and
>> realise that there are more people involved in the language than the old KK
>> crew, many of whom have vanished.  For several years now, who has heard
>> anything from the likes of Keith Bailey, Pawl Dunbar, Wella Brown or Graham
>> Sandercock?  Even Bailey's not happy with KK and has contrived his own
>> orthography (which only even he himself actually uses).
>>
>> The old KK guard has vanished.  I've found, through my  continuing
>> involvement with the Signage Panel, that even KG himself is open to
>> reasonable argument.  Jenefer needs to understand this.
>>
>> Between SWF (Main) and trad. Cornish, there are only 4 serious
>> differences: K/C;  HW/WH; KW/QW and -I/_Y.  (KS/XS is very minor
>> [boks/box]).  Other considerations are relatively minor.  If we could
>> compromise on those major orthographical points, then we're well on the way
>> there.
>>
>> My own opinions (even though i may not like some of my own conclusions)
>> are as follows:
>>
>> K/C.  There is plenty of historical precedent for K used where is C is
>> often written.  In which case (reluctantly) accept.
>>
>> HW/WH.  In my view, there is no precedent for HW, therefore only WH is
>> acceptable.
>>
>> KW/QW:  Absolutely no precedent for KW.  QU is very English.  QW was good
>> enough for Jordan and Jenner, so should be good enough for us.
>>
>> Final --I/-Y:  Lots of precedent for -I in Late Cornish, so accept.
>>
>> That way, of the four major differences, the KK side loses/retains two
>> and the trad. side loses/retains two.  Compromise is achieved.  Remember
>> that SWF should achieve a compromise between Trad, Cornish users (Middle,
>> Tudor, Late) and KK.  We can't move ahead without that, and we HAVE to get
>> a Standard Cornish into schools, sooner rather than later.
>>
>> If we do not, then Cornish dies.  Full stop.  (And don't any of you dare
>> call the above "horse-trading."  I know more about that than any of you!)
>>
>> Craig
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2013 Efn 3, at 19:25, Daniel Prohaska wrote:
>>
>>  I asked Jenefer about it and she said a more complete list of issues
>>> will be put together. On the other hand, absolutely nothing is discussed in
>>> the corpus-group forum, which is sad considering the importance of the SWF
>>> Review.
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> On Jun 3, 2013, at 8:13 PM, Craig Weatherhill wrote:
>>>
>>>  The Review, like the AHG, doesn't strike me as being well organized or
>>>> thought out.  There's a list of relevant points on the MAGA site of you
>>>> know where to find it, but that doesn't give any real detail of the points
>>>> being raised.  Poor, so far.
>>>>
>>>> Craig
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2013 Efn 3, at 17:40, Michael Everson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  On 3 Jun 2013, at 16:00, Daniel Prohaska <daniel at ryan-prohaska.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>  Perhaps you can answer my question. Reading "Devocyon dhe Greryow" I
>>>>>> saw that KS spells the suffix (SWF) -ieth as -yeth which suggests a
>>>>>> pronunciation [jəθ] in words such as ‹mythologyeth, mainoryeth, Bùddyeth,
>>>>>> canybalyeth, chromotografyeth, damcanyeth, kevarhewyeth, kevrinyeth,
>>>>>> plansoryeth, radicalyeth, Satanyeth, technologyeth›. The SWF pronunciation
>>>>>> is [ˈiːəθ], i.e. with two syllables and long stressed /i/, which is not
>>>>>> only a continuation of KK, but also UC and UCR, e.g. ‹medhygyeth›, which is
>>>>>> written ‹medhygȳ•eth› in dictionaries which also indicates disyllabicity
>>>>>> and a long stressed /i/. Why does KS write ‹yeth› and not ‹ieth›?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Both Devocyon and Alys were written while the system was still being
>>>>> discussed; it was not until the Beybel Sans was published that all the bugs
>>>>> were worked out. (Obviously we do not pretend to perfection.) In point of
>>>>> fact those spellings in Devocyon were probably influenced by UCR.
>>>>>
>>>>> In the Beybel's front matter ‹sonieth› occurs and in the text
>>>>> ‹dewynieth› occurs with some frequency. ‹wasonieth› occurs once. ‹yeth›
>>>>> occurs only in ‹lynyeth› where it means [jəθ] (as it does in UC).
>>>>>
>>>>> In Desky Kernowek §0.3.2 it can be seen that we write ‹teknologieth›.
>>>>> The words ‹sonieth›, ‹prydydhieth›, ‹bardhonieth› occur in DK as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have not checked all of our other texts for consistency; there may
>>>>> of course be errors. But KS writes ‹ieth› in these words.
>>>>>
>>>>>  Why is ‹Renêssans› thus spelt, when KS could also spell *Renaissans
>>>>>> yielding the same pronunciation and be closer to English and French from
>>>>>> which the word is borrowed?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Again, Devocyon is an older text. In general the choice between ‹ê›
>>>>> and ‹ai› is relatively straightforward, but there are always edge cases. In
>>>>> the UCR dictionary the word wasn't borrowed into Cornish at all; it is
>>>>> listed in italics as an unassimilated loanword. Whether this word should be
>>>>> ‹Renaissans› or ‹Renêssans›… well, I don't know. Either suits. There aren't
>>>>> really any derivatives that are affected. I think we would favour
>>>>> ‹Renaissans› however, remembering that Devocyon is from a work-in-progress
>>>>> stage (and was a particularly difficult book to translate, too).
>>>>>
>>>>>  What would be the modalities for propsing spelling changes in KS,
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I have no idea what you mean by "modalities".
>>>>>
>>>>> Any change would need to be justified, of course. A change from
>>>>> ‹Renêssans› to ‹Renaissans› can be proposed on grounds of consistency with
>>>>> KS's use of ‹ai› in a certain class of loanwords. Otherwise, however, the
>>>>> change doesn't solve any problem in pronunciation, and is only cosmetic. As
>>>>> the word is rare in Cornish of any kind (Devocyon is hardly a typical
>>>>> text), making this change has little effect on readers.
>>>>>
>>>>> One might (for instance) argue to change ‹sêsya› to ‹saisya› in the
>>>>> basis of Old French "saisir". This, I think, would be rejected on two
>>>>> grounds. First, we believe that most loanwords into Cornish came from
>>>>> English, not French, and the typical Middle English spelling is "seisen"
>>>>> (MED: Also seise, seize, saise, sese(n, sesse, sesi(e, seas(s)e, (chiefly
>>>>> early) seisi, saisi & ces(s)e; p. seised(e, etc. & sezed, seasod, ceased;
>>>>> ppl. seised, etc. & iseis(e)d, isesed, seisit.) So the use of ‹ê› here is
>>>>> well-justified. In addition, this is a fairly common word, and since the
>>>>> change of ‹sêsya› to ‹saisya› solves no problem, it would be better not to
>>>>> make the change. (Of course, a quick check of the texts shows no instance
>>>>> of ‹sais› but does show ‹sesya› 2x and ‹sesyogh› 1x.
>>>>>
>>>>>  also in the light of the SWF Review? Will KS follow such changes
>>>>>> where they make sense to you and Nicholas?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> As there is no way of knowing what (if any) changes to the SWF will
>>>>> come out of the SWF Review, or whether any of them will be improvements to
>>>>> the SWF, there is really nothing to say at this time.
>>>>>
>>>>> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
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