[Spellyans] gawas 'to get'

nicholas williams njawilliams at gmail.com
Thu Sep 8 21:27:26 BST 2011


This discussion, as usual, is getting a little heated. Although I feel very strongly about this matter, I don't think it merits quarrelling.
The best solution for the present would be to allow speakers to write either genev or genef, etc. and either meneth and menedh, etc.

On another point: I was also amused at the Gorseth evensong in St Michael's Helston that everybody was saying dre:z an bizz for dres an bÿs.
This is entirely due to George's distinguishing i from y. Nobody understood that both could be long and short in KK. Instead they assumed
that y was the short variant and i was the long. Hence bizz.
In the days when UC was the only orthography people said beez.

On a further point. In CW Eve thanks the serpent for the gift of the apple with the words:
myhall sera thewgh gramercy CW 599.

This is an anachronism, of course, because the fall hasn't happened, let alone salvation and the emergence of Christian saints.
That's a minor point.

The scribe of CW was William Jordan of Helston.
St Michael was the patron saint of Helston, so he put into Eve's mouth the common asseveration used in the town.
It may even be intended as mild irony. 
A little later Eve says of the fruit she has been tempted to eat:

ny vannaf bos mar grefnye
tha wetha oll ow honyn
adam sure dres pub hwny
me an kare po dew deffan 
the wetha heb y shara 

I will not be so greedy
to keep all to myself.
Adam above everybody 
I love; or God forbid
that I keep him without his share CW 682-86.

That really is irony.

Nicholas 

On 2011 Gwn 8, at 21:01, Michael Everson wrote:

> Well, put all the evidence together and publish it in Cornish Studies if you have the courage of your convictions. Because my reading of the evidence does not lead me to the same conclusion. 

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