You appear to contradict yourself. First you state that the 2 principles are incompatible ('completely overrides', 'entirely inflexible', 'no room whatsoever' etc.). Then you talk of the possibility of a 'reasonable . . . approach to these 2 principles'. Surely if they were so 'entirely' incompatible there would be no way to reconcile them in a 'reasonable way'.
In fact, you are incorrect in your premises. The 2 principles are not incompatible, and KS is the concrete proof of this. KS shows that it perfectly feasible to have an orthography that is AS FAR AS POSSIBLE both attested and unambiguous. The capitalised words are taken verbatim from page vii of the kernowak-revision-13.pdf document, which may be downloaded from www.kernowak.com.
And the way this works is that, contrary to what you claim, one principle does not 'override' the other, and neither principle is 'entirely inflexible'. I suggest you re-read the Introduction to the Kernowak document a little more carefully.
You are talking about black-and-white absolutes. The KS documents is talking in shades of grey--it's all in the phrase I capitalised above.
I think not. When Williams published his paper circa 1990, people had no reason to query his academic credentials. After the publication of his book "Cornish Today" in 1995, it became clear that his knowledge of Cornish was not so good as one had been led to believe; in particular his ideas concerning a prosodic shift showed that he was (and still is) living in a fantasy world. So with the realization that anything Williams says about Cornish needs to be treated with the utmost caution, the question of tj/dj would have been looked at again. It would have been seen that, although there is no real support for tj, the idea of dj is not so stupid as Williams made out; it is phonetically wrong but phonemically makes sense. Ken George went too far in reverting to s everywhere, but no doubt in time this over-reaction will be compensated for.
As anyone that reads the post will see, I didn't 'state' that they were incompatible. And I didn't 'state' they were 'entirely' incompatible either. I didn't even suggest these things. However, rather than bore everyone and myself by repeating what I wrote in simpler terms that you can understand let me just ask this.
Are you saying that the authors of Kernowak are willing to discuss, and accept in the interests of compromise, ways of showing the relationship between spelling and sounds which will result in unattested spellings and unattested spelling conventions being an integral part of the system? The Kernowak document does not suggest that this is the case, and nor do any of the postings here or on the Kernowak forum. In fact they suggest that it would be out of the question. You may well be mismanaging the communication, if that is not the case.
Of course, if the use of unattested spelling conventions is a genuine option then there may be a discussion to be had...but OOPS, there's no point really, because Kernewek Dasunys got there first and has already shown the way forward on that count.
Speaking of which, there has been a lot of criticism of KK users who, apparently, are unwilling to go to the Kernowak forum to discuss the KS proposals. Strangely enough, UdnFormScrefys people don't appear to be rushing in droves to the Kernewek Dasunys forum to discuss the KD proposals either.
Really? It interests me that you suggest that you have reason to query Williams' "academic credentials" on a public discussion list whilst hiding behind a pseudonym. Which of Williams' academic credentials do you consider to be particularly suspect?
Really? What makes you say that? He was made a Bard in 1962 after winning first prize in a literary competition. He was not yet 19. He has won first prize five other times since then, as well as receiving numerous second prizes and other commendations. His 2001 criticism of George's dictionary which appeared in Cornish Studies Nine and which was reprinted in Writings on Revived Cornish lists 370 instances in which George's citations incorrectly reflected the number of citations for various lemmata in the traditional corpus. It seems to me on the face of it, as well as having worked closely with him as editor for well over a decade, that he must know something about Cornish in order to be able to point out so many errors. Perhaps it is notable that George has never responded to that article. It certainly shows that Williams knows the corpus well. Very well. You can quote him a form and often he can tell you from memory where it comes from.
Really? This isn't a linguistic argument. It's just an ad-hominem attack. Were you aware that Williams introduced the very term Prosodic Shift to the discussion about Cornish linguistic history? I believe that he did. Nobody disputes that it did occur. I was trained in Indo-European Linguistics, and I have read Williams' arguments and the attempt to refute them in Dunbar and George's rather pathetic 1997 catechism. I tend to agree with Williams' linguistic arguments. Not because he is my friend and colleague. But because his linguistic arguments make sense. For some years the Kesva hid behind Dunbar & George 1997, but that's been answered now in Towards Authentic Cornish (with nary a response from George).
Really? Would it have been looked at again? Who would look? George withdrew the suggestion and agreed that Williams had shown the "phonemes" to be… fantasies.
Really? It seems quite clear that what George was trying to do was reconcile spelling differences with s/j by trying a theoretical model in which they represented the same "phoneme". This to me seems a naïve approach to language change. It seems to me to be a attempt to force the Cornish data into a theoretical framework. I find Williams' theory (which of course is a theory, as so much of the discussion of Cornish phonology must be) to be simpler and far more plausible. Occam's razor says to me it's far more likely than George's reconstruction. And yes, I have PSRC here and have read what George said when he devised his doubtful phonology.
Really? That would, I think, be more wishful thinking on the part of George. His theories and their implementation have split the Cornish Revival for two decades. Whether one likes and uses KK or whether one dislikes KK and prefers UC/RLC/UCR, it's still the case that the Revival is split and that is a problem for the Revival. George's theories were bold. Worthy in their way, and I say that even though I don't think they were right. They were an interesting experiment. But they polarized and still polarize the Revival. By sticking only to 1500, KK lacks inclusiveness and rejects unnecesarily the richness of the later period -- a richness which a great many people consider very important. The Cussel have made this quite clear in their submission to the Commission.
I wrote to George in early March, just after the Linguistic Working Group had met for the first time. At the LWG there was a definite willingness on the part of many participants to explore the evolution of a Fifth Form which everyone could come to support. UdnFormScrefys has worked on such a form and will submit it to the Commission in due course. Albert Bock and Ben Bruch have also worked on such a form and I expect they will submit it to the Commission in due course as well. In March I suggested to George that it would make sense for us all to work together toward something really inclusive and acceptable to all. Regrettably, he told me to go away and not to contact him again. Curious.
But it seems to me that the two newly-proposed forms are the two most interesting developments since the Partnership Process began. Don't you agree?
One of the things that really annoys me about all of this is the swiftness with which (nameless) people like you rush to Point the Finger of Denigration just so you can get a quick laugh on a discussion forum.
UFS has not criticized KK users who have not come to the Kernowak forum to discuss KS. We have invited them to do so. UFS has criticized the Kesva for refusing to discuss it with us, or even to have someone sign on to watch the discussion. We criticize the Kesva for its dishonesty. On the one hand they want to be seen as an Institution which supports the Cornish language, presumably all of its forms. On the other hand, they simply refuse even to look at what we are doing or to talk to us about it. Keith Bailey stated on the Cornish Orthography list that the Kesva would not come to the Kernowak forum "I've no wish to lend credibility to your self appointed group of idiots." UFS thinks that this behaviour is worthy of criticism.
A number of members of UFS have joined the Kernowek Dasunys list. You can see this for yourself. I am one of them. We are watching the discussion there as well as here. I haven't seen you making comments on the KD forum yourself, have I?
I'm going to make a statement here, on this point, since you have raised it. The UdnFormScrefys group has decided not to comment on the KD proposal for the time being. The proposal was developed by, and is directed to, users of KK, and we believe that it is appropriate to allow those users time to discuss KD without distractions from other points of view. In the meantime, we are reviewing the contrbution in its own right, without prejudice. It is an interesting proposal, worthy of careful review.
This is not hypocritical, Mr Branvras. This is polite.
I'm not going to make another statement about KD on this forum for the time being. This is a choice I have made in order to be respectful to the work Albert Bock and Ben Bruch have done; they did this work at the request of the Linguistic Working Group.
With regard to my previous post, it appears that Jenifer Lowe has now apologised for the wording of her letter. She says it was not her intention to stifle free speech, only that she was concerned that too much negative comment in the local press could harm the standing of the language. I think we must take her at her word. Indeed the way we all jumped to conclusions rather demonstrates how paranoid we've all become.
I made two practical suggestions (not very original at that) that could take a lot of the heat out of the 'debate'. If I think there's a cat in the garden, and you think it sounds more like 20, then rather than sit and argue about it interminably, the sensible thing is for us to send someone trustworthy outside to actually count the bloody cats.
When I suggested an 'audit' of Ken's work, to lay the accusations of academic incompetence that regularly come his way, I took it for granted that any 'auditor(s)' must be (a) suitably qualified, and (b) entirely independent and unbiased, this follows from the analogy with a financial audit. Nicholas Williams and Michael Everson clearly fail on count (b) since they have what amounts to little less than a long-running vendetta against Dr. George and all his works. Williams' literary prowess (which I am unqualified to judge) however great, is no measure of his skills as a linguist. It's like suggesting that a top rally driver must be an expert on the principals of automotive engineering.
I know there are some very good comparative linguists and phonologists out there, who deal deftly with languages far less tractable than Cornish. So why haven't we hired one or two for a professional opinion?
I apologise to the forum for having set off Mr. Everson, I did not intent to do so. I seem somehow to have 'pressed one of his buttons' and out comes the rant that I have seen many many times before. Michael, please, there was not one new idea or piece of information in anything you've just posted. Just as there was almost nothing new in any of Dr. Williams' (et alia) four recent publications which you have put out. The reason there has been no detailed reply to TAC is because there has been no serious engagement with the arguments presented in George and Dunbar -- simply a restatement of his original position -- "this isn't an argument it's just a contradiction", if anyone remembers that Monty Python sketch. Simply quoting numerous examples of historic spellings that he believes prove his case amounts to nothing. Ken already knows about them, he probably has a more accurate count that Williams. The data by and large is not disputed, it's all about argument and deduction. George and Dunbar showed how the arguments used by Williams in Cornish Today were (1) largely circular, and (2) mostly did not follow logically from the data. These criticisms were simply not addressed in TAC.
I take Ms Lowe at her word. That you deign to do so now is your business.
Your suggestions were not "practical" and it is difficult to take them seriously. We have no "vendetta" against George. We do not vilify him. We think KK is unsuitable to be the SWF, and we think that the Revival should do better. It is George with Dunbar, and the Kesva for many years, which have insulted and abused Williams, again and again. For having criticized KK "unfairly" as you see it. Do not twist this into a "vendetta" that we have against George. We just think his Cornish orthography is bad and that something else should be used. The people who seem to have "vendetta" are you and your friends in the Kesva, because we offer you criticism and state our honest view that you do not have the best interests of the Cornish Revival as your core motivation.
As I said a fair few linguists, Celticist and otherwise, who have reviewed the arguments and have reviewed KS have supported us, often with specific reference to the unsuitability of KK. As stated, we will make these views known in due course.
I have not been "set off". But I am unimpressed by your rhetoric. Williams' criticisms in TAC are not answered by your dismissal of them here, and his list of 370 material citation errors in George's dictionary (which have never been addressed, and EVERY time I have mentioned them over the past two years you have ignored it) is not evidence of a trivial understanding of the corpus on Williams' part. The real disconnect is that Williams' arguments are structural, within a coherent linguistic framework. The arguments in Dunbar and George failed to address the structural arguments. Their tack was to try to pick holes in a wee argumente here or a small point there and to hope that this in some way would bring Williams' structural arguments crashing down.
Those who insist that for a word to be Cornish its spelling must be in some work written before 1780 will not care how many linguistic experts declare George's work to be linguistically sound. If the spelling isn't authenticated in the pre 1780 texts, then it isn't Cornish according to them, and can never be proper Cornish. That is of course if it's not some word invented by Williams. Then the rule no longer applies. It's hopeless trying to reason with their position. KK or anything resembling it will never be accepted by them.
Whatever this is, it is not a characterization of the views of the members of UFS.
You are confusing orthography with vocabulary development, and only as a ruse to rubbish Williams and his work. That's not acceptable.
The revival is split. Members of UFS have done something to try to work towards an end to that split. I don't think you are in a position to speak for us.
Michael, could you please clarify what you mean by "structural arguments". Which arguments in particular do you believe have not been addressed. This is a genuine request for clarification.
That's Keith's identification of the Kernowak group. Has anyone ever described the Kesva members in insulting terms like that? I don't think so. We may criticise them, we may disagree with them (often intensely), but I don't think we've ever hurled insults at them. I don't think we have ever cast untrue assertions as Pawl did to undermine the credibility of a friend of mine re Hayle School. Why do you guys do it?
Pedestrian hit in bypass accident
A man suffers serious injuries after being hit by a car on the A30 bypass near Camborne.
Ex-minister in turbine plan row
A row has broken out between a former minister and residents in a Cornish village over his wind turbine plans.
Man quizzed over pedestrian death
A man is arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving after a man was hit by a car on the A30.
Woman, 77, tagged over cocaine
A 77-year-old woman is to be fitted with an electronic tag after being caught with cocaine in her handbag.
Celibacy the key to a long life
A woman who is celebrating her 105th birthday attributes her long life to remaining celibate.
Fire crews save stuck pig's bacon
Firefighters have to wade through a slurry pit in Cornwall to rescue a sinking pig in danger of drowning.
Apology over ashes ruling
Officials apologise to a man who was refused permission to scatter his mother-in-law's ashes in the shape of a cross.
