Posts: 217
Posted:
20.Sep 2007 - 03:26
Said to be derived from 'Attila', 5th Century Branch Manager of Hunnic Household Finance. HHF's penalty for loan defaulting was said to be "Two vital organs - our choice".
R-E-V-R-O-N-S,
Find out what it means to us.
Posts: 695
Posted:
20.Sep 2007 - 08:19
We live and learn - nice one!Here's another from the same school of philology:
KEMYN
from KE, sluice + MYN, mouth, thus 'mouth-wash', or as we would put it in modern English, 'hogwash'
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KS y'n Udn Form Screfys? -- Hep wow!
Kernewek Hengovek? -- Sur, nyns us nahen!
Posts: 217
Posted:
26.Sep 2007 - 05:21
At any rate, despite such a great natural ability, he still had a few tricks up his sleeve. One was a method for remembering vocabulary. He made the point that, if you can derive a mental picture for a foreign word, the more outrageous or humorous the better, it assists greatly in remembering it.
R-E-V-R-O-N-S,
Find out what it means to us.
Posts: 217
Posted:
26.Sep 2007 - 05:30
DAMPNYA - (v) to damn (as in, to Hell)
Derived from the English verb "to dampen".
Cognisant of the fact that neither hellfire nor any other extreme underground heat held any fear or discomfort for the Cornish miners -- after all, worried about catching cold in the afterlife of eternal damnation, they had been known to send back for their blankets -- the medieval church decided to add an eighth circle of Hell especially for the Cornish. Therein, every Cornishman condemned to Hell is up to his bottom lip in muck ..... liquid filth. And rather than "Abandon all hope ye who enter here", the words written up on the portal of the Cornish circle of Hell are "Do not make waves".
And every Saturday, Satan goes water-skiing.
R-E-V-R-O-N-S,
Find out what it means to us.
Posts: 3009
Posted:
26.Sep 2007 - 07:49
edited by: marhak, Sep 26, 2007 - 06:50 AM
Posts: 217
Posted:
28.Sep 2007 - 05:15
DERAYLYA - (v) to brawl, scold
Derived from the railroading verb "to derail".
What happens when Thomas-the-Tank-Engines go bad.
R-E-V-R-O-N-S,
Find out what it means to us.
Posts: 217
Posted:
2.Oct 2007 - 05:21
Hornella – (v) -- to iron
Derived from the porn star of the same name, who fulfilled every man’s fantasy by not only making the guy a full cooked breakfast the next morning, but ironing his shirt as well.
edited by: Laghyades, Oct 02, 2007 - 04:22 AM
R-E-V-R-O-N-S,
Find out what it means to us.
Posts: 695
Posted:
2.Oct 2007 - 08:10
Then there's this violent little word, for which Nance gives a long list of English equivalents, so many that it'd be just about the only one a Cornish comic writer would need in his/her action balloons:
squattya - to hit, knock, break, crash, squash, chop, smash, bump, bang, etc.; (of a mine) abandon working.
This English loan comes from a little-known variant of Cornish omdowl (that has found great popularity in Japan), and the name describes the ritual E. squatting the contestants indulge in before the main stramash itself.
The Japanese had to rename it, because 'omadowra' (as they would pronounce the Cornish word in their syllabary) has unfortunately obscene connotations in their own language. Thus, because they felt that it was the ultimate SUM of 'Omdowl' they dubbed it (in less unfortunate Cornish)
SUM O > J. sumo . . . i.e. 'It was (the) sum'
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KS y'n Udn Form Screfys? -- Hep wow!
Kernewek Hengovek? -- Sur, nyns us nahen!
Posts: 1505
Posted:
2.Oct 2007 - 10:44
so what is the Cornish for 'irony'???
Blog Goky千里之行﹐始於足下.
an Fordhow gwiasva
Posts: 1084
Posted:
2.Oct 2007 - 11:10
Posts: 1505
Posted:
2.Oct 2007 - 11:39
Problem is what term will KS use or for that matter any new standard.
This is going to happen with a lot of the lexicon where different forms use different terms for similar things or concepts.
Blog Goky千里之行﹐始於足下.
an Fordhow gwiasva
Posts: 1084
Posted:
2.Oct 2007 - 11:48
Lexicon is a different matter from orthography. Even in the UCR dictionary we had a tendency to be catholic and inclusive of words. We always retained words attested in the corpus, but did not tend to shun other words in use. The new dictionary should be inclusive, I should think.
Posts: 1293
Posted:
2.Oct 2007 - 18:16
I can't see that that's really irony. Irony is saying the opposite of what you believe, usually in a tone that makes this plain. E.g. "Isn't he clever!" when your meaning is "what a fool!"
Tim's right about the need for precision. Many of Nance's 'translations' have no textual basis.
Seventy Percent of "competent & frequent" Cornish users prefer to write KK! (MAGA/CLP Survey)
Posts: 1084
Posted:
2.Oct 2007 - 18:55
Welsh has eironig and eironi (borrowed from English). Breton has godisus and godis (borrowed from Old French goder 'to joke', to mock').
I don't really think Williams' terms are objectionable in that context, do you?
edited by: Evertype, Oct 02, 2007 - 06:56 PM
Posts: 1505
Posted:
2.Oct 2007 - 19:32
"The ironing is delicious'
(delycyous ew an levnans' po 'delicyous ew an plattians') although does not really work in Cornish.
Blog Goky千里之行﹐始於足下.
an Fordhow gwiasva
Posts: 695
Posted:
2.Oct 2007 - 20:02
-- Irish has ioroin (Tomas De Bhaldraithe)
-- Scots Gaelic has ioronas, sgeigeach, the latter from sgeig- to mock, deride, scorn (Stor-data Briathrachais)
-- French has ironie (Collins)
. . . and so on.
However, Welsh seems rather more inventive; a look through the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, Geiriadur Mawr, & Spurrell-Anwyl turned up the following. Most of them are formed from fairly common roots that you'd find in any Welsh dictionary:
coegni
eironi
ffug-ddifrifwch
gwatwareg
gwatwargerdd
gwatwariad
gwatwariaith/ -iaeth
gwawdeb
gwawdiaith
gwrthynebair/gwrthnegair
mociad
mwyngellwair
With Welsh having so many words for various shades of 'irony', it'd be rather tempting to infer that the Welsh are quite fond of this acerbic form of humour, were it not for fear of attracting baseless accusations' of bigotry or worse.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KS y'n Udn Form Screfys? -- Hep wow!
Kernewek Hengovek? -- Sur, nyns us nahen!
Posts: 695
Posted:
4.Oct 2007 - 17:28
It seems that a Highland grouse, called Yar MacWyls, was visiting her long-lost Cornish cousins. But --govy!-- the visit was no great joy to her hosts, for she was an unmannerly bird and much given to the vices of boasting and braggadocio.
'What d'ye drink doon here fae fun and high jinks, hen?' she asked.
And, when told cider was a favoured tipple in Kernow, was she not just scathing in comparing it to the glories of the true Hieland uisge beatha. It was the same story with language, and with cattle, and bagpipes and so on and so forth.
Now, it is a fact known to grouse (and to ornithologists) that they like to have some special place to show off their dancing skills, and that they call this, in their own tongue, a 'lek' (with a short 'e'),
-- and which is not to be confused at all with the Cornish 'lek' (le:k) with a long 'e' meaning lay or non-clerical (to which is added 'unlearned', which is damnably elitist of the Cornish clergy!) -- nor yet with the Gŕidhlig leac which is a flat stone or ledge (and which, in turn, is cognate with both Cornish leghen and Welsh llechen for a slate).
So, young Yar MacWyls asked her cousins what manner of lek they had down here in these parts, and was told they used the furze thickets for their gwaryow dons.
'Och,' she said, 'that's naething compared to the bonnie blooming heather that we use for oor ceilidhs', and proceeded to sing a verse or two of the well known song of that name.
'The purple heather gives us,' she continued, 'the most noble of leks -- they are chust sublime! Re'm barf pluvak!', she exclaimed (for she had learned some Cornish in her travels), 'This common 'furze' you favour only gives you something unoriginal tae dance on, something so obvious and boring . . . ah'm afraid it's naething but a banal lek!'
And the name stuck, long after she had returned awa' hame tae the Hielands.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KS y'n Udn Form Screfys? -- Hep wow!
Kernewek Hengovek? -- Sur, nyns us nahen!
Posts: 217
Posted:
18.Jan 2008 - 03:38
Whence is derived the Sowsnek word ‘fornicate’ : "an act of intimacy, which not infrequently ends up with a bun in the oven."
R-E-V-R-O-N-S,
Find out what it means to us.
Posts: 1505
Posted:
18.Jan 2008 - 11:18
Blog Goky千里之行﹐始於足下.
an Fordhow gwiasva
Posts: 3009
Posted:
18.Jan 2008 - 11:58
Posts: 695
Posted:
18.Jan 2008 - 16:14
Personally, I'm not persuaded that the Russian President's name really should be transcribed from the original cyrillic as 'Vladimir Putten', and still less that his official Moscow residence is known as 'An Puttendy'.
Equally untrue, I feel, are the stories in Pravda that our Prime Minister's name is spelt 'Djordj' in Britain, for his half-baked ideas, and that he's punningly known here as An Gellder, for his alleged habit of (metaphorically) castrating his political opponents.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KS y'n Udn Form Screfys? -- Hep wow!
Kernewek Hengovek? -- Sur, nyns us nahen!
Posts: 217
Posted:
21.Jan 2008 - 06:18
from which we derive the housing mortgage term "per annum".
per + annum (the declined form of annus)
As any customer of a bank will tell you, any number which precedes the term 'per annum' may be said to be a crock of annuses.
R-E-V-R-O-N-S,
Find out what it means to us.
Posts: 866
Posted:
21.Jan 2008 - 16:59
There is a company who do this, but are very expensive, and only do it for Spanish,German and Welsh.... anyway,
I looked at it ovr 6 mounths ago, and i can still recall all the words from the trial.
For one, Nevra - To Snow (spanish) has a woman in the desert shouting "If i knew it was going to snow i would Nevra left my camel out" and the camel is on the floor shaking
Another, Penn - Head (welsh), it has a (Male, because they said the word is male) with a pen on top of his head
Last one, Frogg - Dress (Welsh), it has a frog in a dress with a woman (female) pojting at the frog.
Its VERY good, but i wan't intrested a) they don't do Cornish b) theyre very pricey
TEL
Everything is impossible until it is not.
Posts: 217
Posted:
29.Mar 2008 - 02:27
Like the song says, and as any local Council worker will tell you, We All Need A Friend To Lean On.
R-E-V-R-O-N-S,
Find out what it means to us.
Posts: 217
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 04:59
TOESA (verb) - to knead
It is a little-known fact that Cornishwomen, in solidarity with their Mediterranean grape-treading cousins, make and knead bread dough with their feet.
Any communications suggesting that Cornishwomen's toes are particularly suitable due to an over-endowment of yeast will be ignored unless there is a free pasty coupon attached.
R-E-V-R-O-N-S,
Find out what it means to us.
Posts: 866
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 13:17
Ev a bal. y'n bal, gans y bal.
He digs, in the mine, with his shovel.
Hehe.
TEL
Everything is impossible until it is not.
Posts: 3009
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 14:05
Posts: 1142
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 15:40
I get it, its like the poem: "The cat... sat on... the mat..."
Very short simple and effective, I believe its given acclaim by the film "Dead poets society"
Although, not to pee on your bonfire TEL, perhaps to elevate it to an awesome poem, use "yn an" ~ instead of "y'n" flows better then...
Ev a bal, yn an bal, gans y bal
Mar vedhow avel gelvinek
(as maazed as a curlew)
Posts: 866
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 16:10
Would Yn an be grammatically incorrect? Would I be hounded down by the grammarians?
lol
TEL
Everything is impossible until it is not.
Posts: 3009
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 17:37
Posts: 1142
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 17:41
"yn an" isnt grammatically incorrect as far as I understand, its much the same as in English... "it is ~ It's" ...I think.
Mar vedhow avel gelvinek
(as maazed as a curlew)
Posts: 866
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 18:15
Okay,
Ev a bal, yn an bal, gans y bal
And marhak, we'll decide by what the SWF says
TEL
Everything is impossible until it is not.
Posts: 695
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 18:44
(1) as a preposition, meaning 'in', it causes no mutation, e.g.
-- yn gwylfos. in a wildnerness
-- yn gwyr. in truth
(2) as an adverbial particle, it causes state-5 Mixed mutation, e.g.
-- yn ta. well
-- yn whyls. wildly, savagely.
As 'gwyr' can be either a noun (=truth, right, justice, fact) or an adjective (=true, real, genuine), there are two possible phrases:
-- yn gwyr = in truth (yn + noun)
-- yn whyr = truly. (yn + adj.)
However, I have heard that only 'yn gwyr' is actually attested in traditional Cornish. Still, Nance gives both yn-whyr and yn-wyr in his dictionaries, and by now it looks like both 'yn whyr/yn wyr' and 'yn gwyr' are too firmly established in ordinary Revived Cornish usage for either to be ousted.
As I understand it, the SWF only addresses issues of spelling, not those of idiom, grammar, lexicon or syntax. And, even within that narrow confine, not everyone shares your apparent blind faith in the SWF's infallibility.
As regards <yn an>, my understanding is that the abbreviation to <y'n> is obligatory, rather than optional.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KS y'n Udn Form Screfys? -- Hep wow!
Kernewek Hengovek? -- Sur, nyns us nahen!
Posts: 1142
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 18:50
But i'm not convinced that it is...? Or is it? hmmm...
Mar vedhow avel gelvinek
(as maazed as a curlew)
Posts: 3009
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 21:16
And I hate and loathe the Anglo-Saxon hw. Always have, always will (it was getting a little dull around here, Nosdan
). In any case the SWF allows the traditional wh.edited by: marhak, Jul 16, 2008 - 08:19 PM
Posts: 695
Posted:
16.Jul 2008 - 21:24
(1) yn an; dhe an; yu an; yma an; ha an (or 'hag an'); a an; re an, etc.
. . . or . . .
(2) yu'n; dhe'n; yu'n; yma'n; ha'n; a'n; re'n, etc.
To my admittedly inexpert eye, set (1) looks like faulty beginner's Unified Cornish, while set (2) looks correct.
I don't think 'a little artistic licence' comes into it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KS y'n Udn Form Screfys? -- Hep wow!
Kernewek Hengovek? -- Sur, nyns us nahen!
Posts: 1142
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 07:36
An in music/poetry in all languages theres is always some degree or rule bending. Wrinting "yn an" rather than "y'n" is hardly the biggest sin ever.
On a similar not.... Why doesn't "A allav" and similar verbs with "A a" Contract???
edited by: Nosdan, Jul 17, 2008 - 07:39 AM
Mar vedhow avel gelvinek
(as maazed as a curlew)
Posts: 410
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 09:00
yu'n? Does Unified join 'yu' and 'an' like this? It didn't when I learned Unfied!
As for 'yn an' and poetic licence, I think the answer is to name a place An Bal. Then you can say 'yn An Bal' just as everyone I know says 'yn An Gannas' because to say 'y'n Gannas' sounds very odd indeed. Hope that helps, looking forward to subsequent cries of derision.
Posts: 410
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 10:55
It is one of the more bizarre aspects of our revival that a perfectly well-formed, grammatical utterance can be shunned, and openly criticised in conversation, because it is not found in the texts.
Why should it be found in the texts?
How can anyone be daft enough to suggest that it cannot be good Cornish because scribes happened not to use it in the manuscripts that have come down to us?
Every day we must utter hundreds of phrases that are not found in the texts, all of them ignored.
But dare to say 'yn hwir' and you get pounced on by people desperate to show their competence in Cornish by suggesting they are familiar with the texts.
Usually, I find, they've not even read them - they just got told about 'yn hwir' down the pub one night.
Whoever started this nonsense has a lot to answer for.
Posts: 1505
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 11:08
14 uses of 'yn gwir' in the texts says the phrase is not an adverb but a prepositional phrase , "in truth' so I don't know whether 'yn' would mutate or not.
Blog Goky千里之行﹐始於足下.
an Fordhow gwiasva
Posts: 3009
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 12:40
Today, though, we seem to like perpetuating mistakes and then claiming they're "correct", rathe rthan correcting them ourselves when the mistake is pointed. However, it seems that the issue is more about WHO points them out.
edited by: marhak, Jul 17, 2008 - 11:41 AM
Posts: 410
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 12:58
It makes no sense at all to say that a phrase that follows all the rules of grammar as we understand them cannot be right because we cannot find an example of it in the texts. No sense whatsoever. It immediately 'writes off' hundreds of phrases that we use every day.
To follow up on Goky's point, NJW is absolutely right - the phrase 'yn gwir' is not an adverb. It is a prepositional phrase meaning 'in truth' and it's found 14 times in the texts. But we're not talking about the prepositional phrase 'yn gwir'. We're talking about the adverb 'yn hwir' meaning 'truly', which isn't found in the texts, but which, by any rules that we understand, is perfectly good Cornish.
Posts: 3009
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 15:55
<hw> is truly awful - <hw> is, in truth, awful.
I am truly sorry - I am, in truth, sorry.
Don't both versions mean exactly the same thing? Might that not been precisely how Cornish scribes were using the phrase?
I stick with "yn gwir", then I know that I'm on solid ground.
Posts: 866
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 16:33
I am not in favour of either - I dont mind <Wh> or <Hw>.
@ Eddie
I do not have "Blnd faith" in the SWF - I support the SWF because it is the only way forward. NOTHING will happen while people are squabbling like small children over whose sweet it is "Oooh, this is my sweet" - "No it isnt, it is MY sweet". I support the SWF because it puts a stop to the infantile arguements over how to spell things - for all that is holy, its only a spelling, its not the end of the world!
TEL
Everything is impossible until it is not.
Posts: 210
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 17:06
It may be that the scribes preferred yn gwir, but this doesn't mean yn hwir is grammatically incorrect. It is simply a matter of style.
Posts: 3009
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 20:15
Still, it all helped to liven up a forum which had become duller than dishwater
Posts: 1505
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 22:18
Blog Goky千里之行﹐始於足下.
an Fordhow gwiasva
Posts: 410
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 22:32
That's the way living languages work - you know an utterance is correct because you recognise the rules that generated it and can judge when they have been applied correctly.
That's what a grammar is for - it allows you to apply a rule to any number of different words and create a new utterance that is recognised as valid.
Here the rule is 'an adverb can be formed by preceeding an adjective with 'yn' and subjecting the adjective to fifth mutation where appropriate'.
'gwir' is an adjective. Apply the rule and the result is 'yn hwir' - a grammatically correct utterance by definition.
Just as 'yn fenowgh' and 'yn tien' and 'yn fras' are grammatically correct - for those of us that treat Cornish as a living language.
Those of us that treat Cornish as a moribund fossil and little more than a static coffee-table exhibit, in which an utterance is deemed to be gramatically correct only if it appears in the traditional texts will indeed be able to extend their command of Cornish only if futher texts are found as a result of more ancient Welsh professors biting the dust.
Posts: 3009
Posted:
17.Jul 2008 - 23:11
Posts: 695
Posted:
18.Jul 2008 - 00:24
The pattern in Welsh is sufficiently different from Cornish that it's maybe not of much help. Fwiw, in Welsh, the words are:
gwir adj. true
gwir, gwyryonedd noun. truth
yn wir. truly (W. 'yn' causes soft mutation,
mewn gwyryonedd. in truth (W. 'mewn' causes no mutation)
In Welsh, 'yn' has 2 roles, similar to the Cornish cognate, but with some differences:
(1) to form adverbs. causing a soft mutation:
yn + da > yn dda. well
(2) as a preposition meaning 'in', but only used with definite nouns, causing nasal mutation of an initial consonant of the following word:
yn y ty. in the house (vowels don't mutate, of course)
yng nghanol y nos, in the middle of the night
ym Mangor. in Bangor.
Where Welsh also differs from Cornish is in having a word for E. 'in' used exclusively with indefinite nouns -- 'mewn', which causes no mutation:
mewn ty. in a house
mewn penbleth. in doubt; perplexed.
Thus, W. has the 2 phrases 'yn wir' and 'mewn gwyryonedd' attested as being authentic, idiomatic usage. From the rules of W. grammar, one might predict the phrase:
*'yn gwir'='in truth',
but that sounds wrong to me and afaik isn't used in the language at all.
In a similar way, we might look at English usage and find attested adverbs formed in the familiar mould:
quick + -ly > quickly
last + -ly > lastly
vast + -ly > vastly
. . . and from these attested examples, we might predict the unattested:
fast + -ly > *fastly
. . . which would, of course, be unidiomatic and would sound like a foreign learner's mistake.
As I understand it, Nicholas Williams's argument against *'yn whyr' is of this type:
I gather it's accepted as fact that *'yn whyr' is historically unattested, but it seems to be a matter of opinion whether or not it's idiomatic. Williams says it's not -- Nance seems to say it is. On this issue, as a learner, I'll just sit on the fence a little longer, but still carry on using 'yn gwyr', and 'yn whyr', and 'yn wyr', and 'dhe wyr' (since they're each 'attested' in the UC I'm learning!)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KS y'n Udn Form Screfys? -- Hep wow!
Kernewek Hengovek? -- Sur, nyns us nahen!
Posts: 410
Posted:
18.Jul 2008 - 09:14
Whether 'yn hwir' was idiomatic when the texts were written is doubtless an interesting question and if we were ever able to determine the answer it may or may not affect the speech habits of today's Cornish speakers.
What is beyond doubt is that 'yn hwir' is idiomatic today. And, following the accepted grammar, there is no reason at all why it shouldn't be.
Evidence that Cornish is a living language.
And whilst I follow and accept the argument that says rules sometimes have exceptions which prevent the generation of certain forms (such as 'fastly', but see below), it would be very unhelpful, and unacceptable to just about everyone, to suggest that we should assume that the absence of a form in the texts indicates the possibility of an exception and therefore the form should be avoided. Why? Because large amounts of our vocabulary (singulars, plurals, verb forms, etc.) and grammar (regular mutations, adverbs...) would have to be thrown out overnight.
'Fastly' is not unattested. Google confirms this. It may not be part of everybody's idiom, but it is attested. Clearly the 'create an adverb from adjective' rule has been applied to 'fast' - evidence that English is a living language, like Cornish.
Posts: 1142
Posted:
18.Jul 2008 - 09:50
Back to contractions... "A allav vy" in normal speach am I right in suggesting that the two A's merge? Is this ever shown in writing? If so is there any other examples, perhaps with different letters?
Mar vedhow avel gelvinek
(as maazed as a curlew)
Posts: 3009
Posted:
18.Jul 2008 - 10:11
Writings in Late Cornish don't tend to cause any confusion or misunderstanding because of the omission, so it works very well.
Posts: 3009
Posted:
18.Jul 2008 - 10:36
But I take Pieter's point. Cornish is alive and it is to be stressed that I have not condemned "yn hwir" - its use has become widespread and established. I tend not to use it and, as I've said, "yn gwir" is rather easier to say.
Far worse things happen in English - if I hear another BBC news reporter say "3 a.m. in the morning", I'm going to throw something. When the hell else does a.m. occur?
Posts: 866
Posted:
18.Jul 2008 - 17:33
"For crying out louds sake"
"7 mounths year old"
TEL
Everything is impossible until it is not.
Posts: 695
Posted:
18.Jul 2008 - 18:02
Sports commentators are some of the worst offenders; a few that have stuck in my memory:
-- during a Formula 1 (car!) race, we were informed that Schumacher was "literally flying round the course" (surely planes are not allowed in F1), and that he was "really burning up the track" (rather a destructive way of using up the tarmac, I'd have thought).
-- in a championship snooker match, when the 2 players were having a long, tactical exchange: "Well, at the end of the day, you got to get all the balls in the pockets." That has to be much less interesting to watch than the normal method of play, when the competitors pot the balls throughout the course of the entire day, rather than just at the end!
But, occasionally, commentators descend to such depths of malapropism that they actually achieve something sublime:
-- in a kick-boxing fight, a spectacular flying kick K.O. to the head was greeted with the remark, "Wow! That kick will go down in the anals of the sport!" (and it *was* pronounced "ay-nals", honest!)
-- one of the world's best poker players was knocked out of the World Series once, when his famous intuition (or 'gut', in the jargon) let him down. The commentator said, "Joe always plays with his gut, but this time it's backfired on him." Quick chorus of the "London Derričre", anyone?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KS y'n Udn Form Screfys? -- Hep wow!
Kernewek Hengovek? -- Sur, nyns us nahen!
Posts: 1142
Posted:
18.Jul 2008 - 18:59
Just to let you know Eddie, you get a turning Moment in mechanics as well. Its the residual torque left over.
Mar vedhow avel gelvinek
(as maazed as a curlew)
Posts: 3009
Posted:
18.Jul 2008 - 20:49
Another one that annoys me is the habit of weather forecasters of saying "the south and west", when they mean "the south west".
The "south and west" would cover from Thanet to Land's End, and from Land's End to Cape Wrath.
Sports commentators often come out with the best ones, many of which are collected in the "Colemanballs" series of booklets.
"There's Ian Botham in the slips with his legs wide open, waiting for a tickle".
"And Juantanera (I think that was the athlete's name) opens his legs and shows off his class".
Etc.
Posts: 695
Posted:
19.Jul 2008 - 09:37
-- UCR; an orthography for learners and users of Cornish, not for academics (who have no need and no wish for a normalised, revived orthography -- they work from source texts only).
-- a UCR dictionary; not one for academics, but for learners and users of Cornish.
-- a grammar-based course book in UCR, 'Clappya Kernewek'; not some formal, academic, Chomskyan Transformational grammar aimed at academics, but a practical one for ordinary learners and users of Cornish.
-- a UCR New Testament, containing some of the most beautiful Cornish ever written, imo.
-- some fine poetry.
Please explain to us how all this new, fresh writing -- none of it aimed at his fellow academics! -- shows Williams treating our language as 'something dead'.
Of course, Williams has also written books and articles discussing the Revival and the language, and which are critical of Kernewek Kemyn:
-- Cornish Today
-- Towards Authentic Cornish
-- numerous articles in "Cornish Studies" and "Writings on Revived Cornish".
The KK 'heavyweights' have been largely unable to refute his arguments, apparently lacking both the facts and the wit to do so. Moreover, they've shown themselves incapable of using his critiques to improve KK; one of them even went so far as to respond that KK "tends towards perfection". Instead, they've gone for the so-called 'ad hominem/ad personam' tactic, attacking the person rather than his/her arguments.
This is the real reason why the KK hardkore (with whom you seem to align yourself, 'Pieter') try and badmouth Williams: his academic study and debating of Cornish has led him to dismiss your chosen KK orthography as flawed and spurious.
It's worth recalling when Williams's dictionary was published, there was an outcry from some of the KK hardkore over his inclusion of these entries:
.Williams was, of course, recording actual Cornish usage with these entries, and even marked the derogatory terms as such. But, evidently, the KK establishment only like to invoke 'living spoken Cornish' when what's spoken is what favours them. Dissenting voices are not allowed, and dissenting groups are dismissed as 'a tiny minority of (noisy) troublemakers', 'a few old fossils' etc.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KS y'n Udn Form Screfys? -- Hep wow!
Kernewek Hengovek? -- Sur, nyns us nahen!
Posts: 410
Posted:
19.Jul 2008 - 13:29
Your post is a timely reminder, should one be needed, that Williams has, indeed, as you point out, two approaches to our language.
The first is to treat the language as if it fossilised centuries ago. This is the 'I find no evidence in the texts that monks at Glasney used this phrase, and it is therefore inadmissable' approach.
The second is to treat the language as a personal canvas on which anything can be splashed and then presented to the world as 'Cornish', regardless of whether anybody else recognises it as such.
As a result his dictionary is full of phrases that he has simply made up and which have never been heard in Cornwall (you will remember from Cornishorthography the observation that there are more 'Cornish' terms for self-abuse in the Williams dictionary than most people could muster in English).
No harm in making suggestions, of course, but they do need to be marked as such lest people treat them as idiomatic Cornish and wonder why everyone looks blankly at them when they come to Cornwall and try to use them.
An hilarious example of this was conveyed to me at the last Cornish language weekend. A friend pointed out the trouble you could get into if you use the Williams dictionary to translate 'Come up and see my orchids sometime', or 'those are the biggest orchids I've ever come across' especially if you're one of those Kemmynites (hardkore or otherhwise) who shuns English-looking words on principle.
Now, those of us with degrees in linguistics, pedantry, classics, and showing off know why he translated 'orchid' as 'dog's b*ll*cks' but I've yet to find another English to Something dictionary that thinks that is appropriate. It really is a case of caveat lector where the Williams dictionary is concerned, don't you think? (I thought you'd like 'caveat lector' because you're so fond yourself of using le mot juste in various Fremdsprachen).
Nevertheless, your cogent arguments have now convinced me that the Williams approach to Cornish is spot on.
I've always argued that Cornish has been revived and that what we need to do now is 'get the product to market'.
But as 'marhak' has pointed out, Williams says we haven't revived it yet (despite the fact that many of us could live our lives in Cornish given half a chance), but are in the process of reviving it. So it's back to square one (or maybe two) with everything up for grabs. I can see now that that's the way forwards!
So I'll be there with the rest of you, following Williams into the sunset.
[Apologies to anyone detecting an unintentional lack of civility in this post - both 'marhak' and 'Eddie-C' cleaned up their acts, and I'm trying to do the same but probably failing right now. Must try harder.]
Posts: 3009
Posted:
19.Jul 2008 - 17:21
Williams is right when he says that we are reviving a language. The SWF process, and discussions both before and since, show that there is much we all yet have to learn about the language. During the compilation of KS, for example, several knotty problems turned up and we realised that no one had ever tackled these in any depth before.
Several like yourself, Pieter, pour scorn on the use of neologisms in Williams's dictionary, but none of you seem to have read his preface which says:
"This is very much a pioneering work and some, perhaps much, of the new vocabulary presented below will not find favour with Cornish speakers. This is only to be expected and I would very much like to hear from any user of this dictionary who has alternative suggestions".
Except that none of you did. For no reason other than the fact that you all took umbrage with his criticisms of KK, none of you approached him as he had invited you to do. All he received was derision.
Williams's dictionary, alone amongst all available dictionaries of Cornish, was bang up-to-date. He even had words for CD-Rom, eye-liner and roller skate, and who cares about how many phrases he has for masturbation? (Why should you specifically look there?).
If you look under the head word FEDERATION, you will even find that he has "The United Federation of Planets". "Up Sh*t Creek without a paddle" was one that I was delighted to find there, especially as my place name research had led me to the original Sh*t Creek (Caffa Pill, Fowey - you'd have a problem rowing anything up there now - someone went and built a bloody great car park over most of it).
Bewnans hyr ha sowena dhys (as Mr Spock might have said, using a universal translator).
Posts: 410
Posted:
19.Jul 2008 - 20:48
That was very apparent, 'marhak'. You probably didn't realise that 'Eddie-C' had an act that needed "cleaning up" either. Clearly it boils down not to WHAT is written but to WHO writes it.
Now, who was it that made a similar observation recently?
This is why we are frequently at loggerheads, because I fundamentally disagree. What's more, I think that point of view shows a total lack of confidence in the language and I believe it's politically unhelpful and probably naive.
Having a lot to learn about the language does not mean it has not been revived. I'm sure linguists learn things every day about all sorts of languages, including English. Nobody doubts their status.
You seem to be suggesting that we cannot declare the language as revived until 'knotty problems' have been tackled. There will always be 'knotty problems' - so if you're right, we will never declare that the language has been revived. I won't accept that, so as far as I'm concerned, you're wrong.
Personally I think your 'knotty problems' are irrelevant to the revival. I think Kemmyn 'knotty problems' are irrelevant to the revival too.
Solving them, if indeed they are solvable, will not get Cornish into schools, it won't encourage adults to take up the language, it won't get Cornish used in public life, it won't help build a body of modern Cornish literature, it won't train teachers, and it won't give people confidence in speaking the language rather than agonising over whether to use an 'i' or a 'y' in some obscure word that you've been arguing over for months or years.
The tragedy is that you will manage, without a doubt, to force these matters to be treated as if they were critically relevant, and getting the revived language 'to market' will continue to stall.
Of course I've read the preface. You really have got to get out of this habit of assuming you know what people do and don't do and what their motivation is. You're about to do it again in the next quote...
Are you seriously suggesting that the tens of Unified users of his dictionary that did not send in suggestions did not do so because they all took umbrage with his criticisms of KK? Could it be that they just couldn't be bothered, or didn't feel qualified enough to send suggestions, or didn't have the time?
And could that have been the motivation of the hundreds of Kemmyn users of his dictionary that didn't send in suggestions too?
Personally I've never sent suggestions about the Kemmyn dictionaries to the Cornish Language Board either, but I assume you have since you seem to think this is what everyone should be doing. And if you haven't it can only be 'for no other reason' than 'the fact' that you've taken umbrage with how popular KK is (see how absurd this prejudging of motivation can be?).
I can't believe you are genuinely interested in that second question. I think you've fallen into old ways. I think you are suggesting something thoroughly uncivil. A phrase comes to mind that the Williams dictionary might have listed as being in common use on our streets today (when it's not, of course) - 'ypocrysy a rewl OK'.
Well, if you must bring up awful examples like this, let me explain why I am uncomfortable about it.
This phrase - 'war ryver an caugh ha ny heb ref' is not marked in any way to say that it is not traditional, that it is not in common use, that it's a translation of an English idiom with restricted use, and that (if you couldn't work it out) it is a word for word translation of that idiom.
What, exactly, is the point of translating a phrase word for word when, should anyone ever feel the urge to produce it, they could do so themselves by looking up 'sh*t', 'creek' and 'paddle'?
What's more, in order to understand this 'Cornish' phrase, 'war ryver an caugh ha ny heb ref', you have to be fluent. Very fluent indeed. Not in Cornish, but in English.
Do you think our Cornish speakers in the Czech Republic would understand 'war ryver an caugh ha ny heb ref'? Perhaps they would, but I suspect speakers of some other languages might put a very differnt interpretation on it.
Do you think you'd find the phrase in an English to French dictionary translated as 'sur la riviere de merde sans pagale'? And would any French speaker understand it?
The enterprise is, in places, completely absurd.
And while I'm having an uncivil rant, would anyone like to try to justify, or at least make an excuse for, Williams' startling translation 'ryver an caugh' - 'the sh*t's river', 'the river belonging to the sh*t'??
Posts: 3009
Posted:
20.Jul 2008 - 07:29
. In fact, it turned out to have its uses - a certain corrupt politician, whose surname happens to be Thomas, gained the nickname "Tuchya" among some of us (and before you accuse me of libel, I can prove his involvement in corruption and, in 2002, did so, which is why he has never been in politics since).Translation - how about "river of the sh*t"? Why "the"? Well, in English, we say: "You've dropped me in THE sh*t", not "you've dropped me in sh*t". I don't see anything particularly startling about this and I think you are making a fine art out of nit-picking.
No comment on the inclusion of "The United Federation of Planets"? I take it, then, that you are not a Trekkie.
Nor am I suggesting for one moment that the revival should not continue but I do question whether Cornish can, as it stands, yet be counted as a truly living language. It's a point on which there will be differing views but, for me, it will not truly live until it enters schools as an everyday subject and produces a sizeable new pool of young speakers with each school year. I suspect, Pieter, that you are not young. Neither am I. The language isn't really about us, other than the fact that we do our bit in our various ways. It's about the future, and ensuring that Cornish HAS a future.
Discussions about ways to make the language relevant to the modern age, with words and expressions that fit the 21st century. For several decades, a kind of complacency set in among language users. We were ignoring the young. We were doing far too little to attract them in and, by doing so, forge the language's future. How many families, during the last 30 years, have brought their own children up in Cornish? I can only think of about half a dozen. It isn't enough (not that I can play any such part - I have no kids - but I did introduce Year 7 classes at Hayle School to the language for a term a few years ago). We were all, even Ken George, keeping Cornish archaic.
William's dictionary set a precedent that aimed at the future. We needed new words and terms to suit the times and, yes, that includes ways to sound off with modern expletives (the state of today's society demands this facility more than ever before). Williams offered ways of achieving this, which is something to be applauded, not condemned. He made it clear that this was not definitive but something to be discussed, and his request for alternative suggestions was both genuine and constructive. It is a pity that this was not taken up.
edited by: marhak, Jul 20, 2008 - 06:52 AM
Posts: 1142
Posted:
20.Jul 2008 - 08:28
Far better to open dialogue with language groups perhaps produce lists of suggestions for words and put it out for criticism.
I don't doubt the Williams' dictionary is useful, and he's done some good work... But its the cavalier attitude or his one man band type approach that people get uppity with.
Mar vedhow avel gelvinek
(as maazed as a curlew)
Posts: 3009
Posted:
20.Jul 2008 - 09:24
Posts: 695
Posted:
20.Jul 2008 - 10:41
Some, like the Oxford Engish series aim to record the language as it exists in recorded form.
Malcolm MacLennan's 'Gaelic Dictionary' is designed, in large part, to explain English to native Gaelic speakers. By contrast, Derick S. Thomson's 'New English-Gaelic Dictionary' is aimed at learners of Gaelic, and contains lots of neologisms (none of them marked as such!)
Nance's dictionaries have, I believe a two-fold aim:
-- to record as much as possible of the historically attested lexicon of Cornish, and
-- to offer neologisms to make the language more usable to modern revivalists. Some of these are loans or adaptations from Breton and/or Welsh; they are generally marked as such in his C-E dictionaries, but not in the E-C ones. Other entries are calques of terms in English and other languages, but they don't seem to be marked as such.
Williams's dictionary follows in the same general path as Nance's. It has many more neologisms and calques, but without marking them as such. It may be that this is a flaw in the dictionary, and certainly I'd have preferred to see such creations labelled. But, for my money, it's still the most useful Cornish dictionary I have.
It's disingenuous of Pietercharles to suggest that Czech learners would find difficulty with 'war ryver an caugh'. The fact that the dictionary is bilingual, in Cornish and English, tends to suggest that the readership for whom it was designed is expected to be fluent in English -- including its idioms. And, of course, the reason it was designed like that would have been the quite reasonable presumption that the overwhelming majority of Cornish learners will have English as a 1st language.
However, Pieter's compassion for the disadvantaged Czech cohort of Kernewegor wannabes is a tribute to his kind heartedness, and I'm sure we all await with bated breath his forthcoming Czech-Cornish dictionary which should alleviate their sorry plight (even though he'll doubtless be inflicting Kiddie Kernewek orthography on the poor buggers!).
As a matter of fact, Williams did precisely this. I know several people who collaborated with him on the contents of the dictionary, offering suggestions and corrections.
There's even an indication of this on the book's title and biblio pages: it was published by Agan Tavas (jointly with Evertype). This makes it a fair guess that AT might just have been a teensy weensy bit involved in the design of the dictionary's contents.
That'll be 'cavalier' in the sense that he's had the temerity to point out the flaws in KK, and dismiss it as spurious 'fug-Gernewek'.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KS y'n Udn Form Screfys? -- Hep wow!
Kernewek Hengovek? -- Sur, nyns us nahen!
Posts: 1142
Posted:
20.Jul 2008 - 11:27
Anyway, why are we scratching at our wounds before the Scabs have even formed... People shouldn't be concerned with past woes. We have a new form to be writing dictionaries in.
I hope that we can all collaborate in the next one, and perhaps produce something special. Perhaps start us on the road to the gerlyver meur pennscol edition?
edited by: Nosdan, Jul 20, 2008 - 11:28 AM
Mar vedhow avel gelvinek
(as maazed as a curlew)
Posts: 410
Posted:
20.Jul 2008 - 12:20
Too true, 'marhak', too true. I've picked up the habit from the absolute masters of the art.
In view of your contribution you no doubt got a free copy of "Form and Content..." - have you read it? It takes nit-picking to a level previously unsurpassed.
And you'll remember 'morvyl's friend and his/her huge list of baseless criticisms of the Kesva's Cornish. They wrote, for example, 'the Kesva is disappointed' and said friend insisted it should have been 'the Kesva was disappointed'. They wrote 'gans hemma' to mean 'with this' and he/she insisted it could only mean 'hereupon'. What a nit-picking scream!!!
I think it's a case of not WHAT the nit-picking is but WHO does the nit-picking.
Now, who was it that made a similar observation recently?
[I see 'Eddie-C' is falling into old ways again, too. He and you, however, no doubt think his latest post was a model of civility.]
Posts: 3009
Posted:
20.Jul 2008 - 21:49
Posts: 1293
Posted:
20.Jul 2008 - 22:29
"Yma'n" is optional, the others are always found in the traditional Middle Cornish texts afaik, certainly "y'n". Now the texts are all verse (aside from Tregear) of a type where each line has to have an exact number of syllables (most commonly seven). So if you could say *"yn an" I'm sure it would have got used now and again when the writer was one syllable short. They seem to have used ever trick available sooner or later, so if "yn an" wasn't used then I think that's good evidence to show that it really wasn't available.
As for the others, Late Cornish starts to pull some of these apart and regularly says "ha e", "dha e" 'and/to his/her' etc. There's a project for someone to research then
Posts: 1293
Posted:
20.Jul 2008 - 22:41
Because there's an invisible or rather inaudible softened "g" there. When it gets devoiced as in a 5th state mutation (softening + devoicing) it surfaces as "h", e.g. "may hylliv" 'so that I may'. Ah, but then that woun't explain why "a" doesn't combine with verbs that begin with a vowel in any case (except parts of "boz" and "moz"). Odd, because in Breton "a" is very often dropped. Just seems to be a Cornish thing that it isn't. Stress? Rhythm? Sense??
edited by: morvran, Jul 20, 2008 - 10:41 PM
Seventy Percent of "competent & frequent" Cornish users prefer to write KK! (MAGA/CLP Survey)
Posts: 410
Posted:
21.Jul 2008 - 09:20
Not at all, 'marhak'! Don't you worry yourself about me.
It would be impossible for anyone with a thin skin to post here more than once or twice before dashing for cover and staying there.
No, I was just bringing hypocrisy to the attention of our readers in case any of them had missed it. You'll probably remember -
I think it's probably a case of not WHAT the incivility is, but WHO is being uncivil.
Now, who was it that made a similar observation recently?
Posts: 410
Posted:
21.Jul 2008 - 09:23
That certainly ISN'T true of yu'n / yw'n .
Posts: 3009
Posted:
21.Jul 2008 - 14:07
Which brings me to another question - I am fascinated by your pseudonym, the spelling of which is suggestive of South African connections. After the rise of Nelson Mandela and the fall of apartheid, a small but obnoxious group of white, redneck South Africans took their money and wandered northward to inflict themselves upon the little land of Kernow. Since then, they have been a particular problem, especially in their insistence upon treating the Cornish people as their new kaffirs.
I sincerely hope that you are not one of them.
edited by: marhak, Jul 21, 2008 - 01:08 PM
Posts: 1293
Posted:
21.Jul 2008 - 15:24
Nag yw, pur wir!
Sorry, I overlooked that one because it's so bizarre. Even Nynja spotted that Nance's "yu" (pronounced 'you') was wrong. And with "yw" there is of course no vowel to elide with. Are there still people out there saying "yooo"
There are certainly still books on sale promoting this abomination, i.e. UC's y-u-macron. I suppose that's the price you pay for absolute certainty. UC is as Nance decreed, mistakes and all, so "yw, dynnargh" etc must remain "yu+, dynargh" for all time, or maybe only for Caradar's 1,000 years. I wonder why UC users never set up a body to approve corrections to their system?Seventy Percent of "competent & frequent" Cornish users prefer to write KK! (MAGA/CLP Survey)
Posts: 1293
Posted:
21.Jul 2008 - 15:28
Would you two gentlemen please step outside if you intend to have a punch-up. Or do we need to start a "Cornish insult of the day" thread. That might at least expand the language in a colourful way
Seventy Percent of "competent & frequent" Cornish users prefer to write KK! (MAGA/CLP Survey)
Posts: 3009
Posted:
21.Jul 2008 - 16:20
Posts: 217
Posted:
29.Jul 2008 - 01:18
What a splendid idea! I'll get right on it.
R-E-V-R-O-N-S,
Find out what it means to us.