[Spellyans] tavas

[Michael Everson]

On 14 May 2013, at 18:29, Chris Parkinson <brynbow at btinternet.com> wrote:

> Michael, you write that all the vowels (in Cornish) are found in unstressed position where they all mean schwa or...  Did you intend to add something?

The argument has been given so many times I may have moved on.

Vowels in unstressed syllables are evidently schwa /ə/, though there seems to be some utility for distinguishing schwi /ᵻ/ and schwu /ᵿ/ in descriptions for revivalists. (Jenner describes this as well.)

Compare English "Rosa's" and "Rose's" where the first is schwa and the second schwi. But not in all dialects. Cornish "gwelas" and "gwelys" both have schwa, though the latter is i-coloured.

> If not, how can you be sure that this always happens to unstressed vowels in Cornish? This doesn't happen in all languages. It doesn't happen all the time in Welsh where supposed words 'tavas' and 'taves' would be pronounced differently.

The prosody of Welsh is completely different from that of Cornish. Welsh (and English spoken in Wales) is staccato, with vowels clipped and pure. Cornish has always been described as mushier than that ;-) 

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/