[Spellyans] suffixes used by Snell and Morris

[Nicholas Williams]

In 1981 the Cornish Language Board published the first Cornish Dictionary Supplement by J.Anthony N. Snell and William A. Morris. This volume contained two parts: Pythow an Gegyn and War an Fordhow. In 1984 the Cornish Language Board published the second Supplement by the same two compilers with the title Chy ha Sothva. The spelling throughout is Unified Cornish. Snell and Morris are meticulous in showing where they found existing terms and how they devised new ones. They also set out their general principles for devising new words. Overall Snell and Morris did a very professional job and many of their suggested terms are now in general use.
	It is noteworthy that for adjectives they have two productive suffixes: -ek and -us, for example in trevek ‘urban,’ cresek ‘average’, kerghynedhek ‘environmental’, seythennek ‘weekly’, bodhek ‘voluntary’, dewysyansek ‘industrial’ and frausus ‘fraudulent’, berus ‘liquid’. The -yk is a nominal suffix which they use for diminutives, e.g. bagasyk ‘batch’, cowellyk ‘sink tidy’, tedheryk ‘electric fuse’. 
	The suffix -ek is used for places abounding in something, e.g. petrolek ‘filling station’ (alongside petrolva).
	The suffix -el is employed for gadgets and tools: dornel ‘beater’, hornel ‘smoothing iron’, musurel ‘gauge’. Though in many cases they use the personal agent suffix -er or -or in such cases: yeyner ‘refrigerator’, ayrewner ‘air-conditioner’, dyvommer ‘buffer, bumper’, encrunyer ‘capacitor’, eskynner ‘lift’; and carburador ‘carburetter’, ylyador ‘alternator’.
	In no part of these two volumes do Snell and Morris use *-el as an adjectival suffix, even though they borrow freely from both Breton and Welsh.

Nicholas  
	
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