[Spellyans] Adjectives in -(y)ek and -(y)el

[Ray Chubb]

When I saw the script on the side of a bus; 'Agas gonis kyttrin leel',  
my first thought was 'your loyal bus service'. This is certainly what  
a literate native speaker would have made of it, possibly even; 'your  
loyal bus work'. So, nothing very assiduous about that.

When reviving Cornish we can't go far wrong if we keep a notional  
native speaker in mind. It that way we avoid being accused of creating  
a conlang.

On 4 Mer 2017, at 16:25, njawilliams wrote:

> Please cite examples. Is there any evidence for -el as productive  
> suffix? Such "enrichment" of a resuscitated language is in the view  
> of many illegitimate and makes revived Cornish increasingly a conlang.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 4 Mar 2017, at 15:19, Ken George <ken.george at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>> While Welsh –(i)ol and Breton –el are common adjectival endings,  
>> the Middle Cornish cognate –el is scarcely attested in the texts.   
>> For this reason, Nance preferred –ek as the principal ending to  
>> use when forming new adjectives.  In 1985, Oliver Padel showed in  
>> his book (CPNE) that ‑(y)el is found in Cornish place-names.  This  
>> gave the green light to creating adjectives which have -(y)el, as  
>> an alternative to -(y)ek.  As the following table shows, the  
>> Cornish Language Board has been particularly assiduous in the use  
>> of this suffix in forming neologisms.  These often correspond to  
>> words with English -al, e.g. ammethel 'agricultural'.  –y(-el) is  
>> now therefore highly productive as an adjectival suffix.  This is a  
>> valuable step in the enrichment of the language.
>>
>>
>> Words ending in
>>
>> -(y)ek
>>
>> -(y)el
>>
>>
>> No.
>>
>> %
>>
>> No.
>>
>> %
>>
>> Traditional Cornish of all phases
>>
>> 153
>>
>>  20
>>
>>   5
>>
>>   2
>>
>> Nance’s dictionaries (CE38, EC52, CE55)
>>
>> 231
>>
>>  30
>>
>>   9
>>
>>   4
>>
>> Supplements, CPNE, works of 1980s
>>
>>  53
>>
>>   7
>>
>>   8
>>
>>   4
>>
>> Williams’ dictionary (EC00)
>>
>>  52
>>
>>   7
>>
>>   2
>>
>>   1
>>
>> Six dictionaries published by the Kesva
>>
>> 275
>>
>>  36
>>
>> 198
>>
>>  89
>>
>>                Total
>>
>> 764
>>
>> 100
>>
>> 222
>>
>> 100
>>
>> This table was produced by examining all the head-words in Gerlyver  
>> Meur (2009) and Gerlyver Poket (2015).
>>
>>
>>
>> Dr Ken George

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