[Spellyans] Ian Jackson: introduction

A. J. Trim ajtrim at msn.com
Tue Dec 15 21:22:37 GMT 2015


Jon,

I was referring to the two SWF proposed pronunciations of the 
historically written ponya.
We cannot now know for sure how the 'o' was historically pronounced.
All I was saying was that if the SWF proposed pronunciations are the 
same as the unknown historical pronunciations, then the sound of 'o' in 
'donkey' (i.e. [ɔ ]) does not occur in this word ponya.

Therefore, the comments about the 'o' in 'donkey' and 'monkey' (although 
very interesting) may not be relevant to the interpretation of ponya.

The SWF proposed pronunciation is more akin to the 'u' in German 'Dunkel'.

I would like to use the spelling pœnya but this is not authentic.

You could go for pönya instead.

I think that this vowel is different enough from a regular 'o' to need 
being marked in some way.


Regards,

Andrew J. Trim




On 15/12/15 15:37, Jon Mills wrote:
> Andrew,
> I was wondering what you mean by "correct".
> Ol an gwella,
> Jon
> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 15, 2015 at 2:36 PM
> *From:* "A. J. Trim" <ajtrim at msn.com>
> *To:* "Standard Cornish discussion list" <spellyans at kernowek.net>
> *Subject:* Re: [Spellyans] Ian Jackson: introduction
> The MAGA on-line dictionary gives:
>
>
>     ponya <http://www.cornishdictionary.org.uk/cornish/ponya>
>
> ponya
>
> vb run / trot
>
> M:
>
> 'pɤnja
>
> L:
>
> 'pʊnjɐ
>
>
> If this is correct, there is no 'o' as in standard English 'donkey', here.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Andrew J. Trim
>
>
>
>
> On 15/12/15 12:32, Craig Weatherhill wrote:
>
>     But don't forget that Lhuyd was writing phonetically.  It is
>     common in Cornish speech to render short O as short U, e.g.
>     "dunkey" (donkey).  This might well have been found more widely -
>     how does one explain the Eng. pronunciation of "monkey", which at
>     face value, ought to be pronounced as Eng. "donkey".
>     Craig
>     On 2015 Kev 15, at 11:38, Nicholas Williams wrote:
>
>         The last instance of /ponya/ before the seventeenth century
>         seems to be Tregear ca 1555 who writes /lyas onyn a rug resak
>         ha ponya in stray/ TH 30a. Lhuyd in /Archæologia Britannica/
>         (1707), however, writes the verbal noun of the verb ‘to run’
>         as /punnia/ AB: 53b, /punnya/ AB: 61c. In later Cornish
>         therefore one might more accurately spell the stressed vowel
>         as <u> rather than <o>.
>         Janice says:
>         Yth esof vy ow ponya — shift forward a few hundred years and
>         you get Thero vy ow ponya.
>         I am not sure I can agree with her.
>         Setting aside the verbal noun for a moment, let us look the
>         rest of the phrase.
>         In Sacrament an Alter (ca ?1570) we read:
>         /rag ne geran cregy nanyle regardia gerryow Dew/ ‘for we do
>         not believe nor regard the words of God’. Notice both that the
>         -s- of /eson/ has been rhotacised and that the particle /ow/,
>         /o/ has been suppressed/omitted before both /cregy/ ‘believe’
>         and /regardia/ ‘regard’.
>         Look then at the following quotations from the /Creation of
>         the World/ (1611):
>         /mere yth esaf ow towtya/ CW 1540
>         /yeth esaf ow tremena/ CW 1696
>         /yth esaf ow pose gorthys/ CW 2125.
>         It seems, therefore, that /neg eran cregy/ from /ca/ 1570
>         predates /yth esaf ow towtya/ from 1611. Jan’s remark ‘a few
>         hundred years’ is difficult to sustain.
>         This is, I believe, an important point. Many of the alleged
>         differences between Middle and Late Cornish are apparent
>         rather than real and it is unwise to emphasise the distance
>         between the two forms of the language.
>         Nicholas
>
>             On 13 Dec 2015, at 17:50, Nicholas Williams
>             <njawilliams at gmail.com> wrote:
>             Me a bon means 'I shall run'. 'I run' is best translated
>             Yth esof ow ponya.
>             And indeed 'I shall run' is more idiomatically rendered me
>             a vydn ponya or
>             me a wra ponya.
>             Nicholas
>
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