Marazion Beach and Red River
Looking out over 'Red River' as it flows across Marazion Beach. As you can see it isn't very red any more - it was originally named because of discolouration from mining spoil.
Oh, and there's St Mic...
Marazion Beach
The western end of Marzion Beach as it blends into Longrock beach and curves around to Penzance in the distance...
Broken Down Old Hut
I believe Stonefly posted a photo of this same old broken down old building a couple of years back.
Anyway, here it is again!...
So what happened to Andrew Hawke's work? Is it available? If so, from where? I heard some years ago hat he was compiling this but didn't hear any more. If it isn't published, then it ought to be.
This I believe was the original source of Ken's "secret database", although I understand there has been much added over the years, but it is still, I think, AH's copyright which is why it can't be made public.
OTOH the Nat. Lib. of Wales cannot show how they obtained the copyright of Bywnans Ke, which still exists and belongs technically to the heir(s) and assigns of whoever it was who first set the play down on paper. It does not pass with the physical copy of the text, even if there is only one in existence (which cannot of course be proved). Come to that the NLW can't even prove they own the physical copy. It came to them amongst the papers of the late Prof. Caerwyn Williams, but nobody has any idea how he got it, even less whether he was it's legal owner.
This however did not stop them trying to put the frighteners on the Kesva, threats which were groundless, possibly illegal, and which simply wasted Kesva funds on legal expenses. It is however typical of the Welsh scholarly establishment that the last thing they want is for ordinary Cornish people to have access to their language. In any case the concept of a single scholar producing the definitive edition of a difficult work like this, all by himself and on dead trees, is thoroughly out dated in the age of internet collaboration and publication.
Well some sample extracts were processed as a demo two or three years ago, but there was absolutely zero interest or feedback so the whole business was left on one side. But if you want to look, it seems the demo is still around :
http://corpus.k...k/allex.html
(You need to scroll down past all the proper names and loan words to see the 'real' stuff)
OK, Morvran, I take your point about the NLW and Bewnans Ke (and I'm glad that you haven't repeated the implication published in the WMN some time ago that other Cornish movements stirred it up). I also take your point that a Cornish document should be in Cornish hands, but, sadly, it isn't.
The Rillaton Gold Cup, the Morvah gold hoard and the Towednack gold hoard are among Cornish treasures held by the British Museum, and we can't get our hands on them. The BM continues to hold what it is pleased to call the "Elgin Marbles", and the Greeks can't get them back.
Chysauster is managed (not owned) by "English" Heritage, who market the site as someone else's heritage (no matter how often the signs get doctored) and charge the village's descendants to enter it.
None of this is right but just a sad fact of life. We'll change it only by bringing protracted pressure to bear.
Nonetheless, the CLB still had no right to simply steam in without asking (at least) the heirs of Caerwyn Williams who, as I understand it, handed the document and its associated ownership rights (not copyright - that lapsed c.1625 to apply the current law)to the NLW. As I stated earlier, all the CLB had to do was ask and the daft situation would never have occurred.
I can't stress too often that it's only a tiny handful of Welsh scholars who take this attitude. They're about as representative of Welsh life as, say, Agan Tavas are of us. When I asked the poet and scriptwriter Alan Llwyd to write the introduction to 'Nothing Broken', he was more than glad to. He was very surprised when I mentioned this attitude, as he'd never encountered it. Anyway, we've got our share of anti-Welsh bigots - suppose we can't complain!
Wouldn't you like to discuss this with all the authors of the draft proposal? The entire editing group is subscribed to the discussion list which you can join at http://kernowak,com.
All you have to do is tell us your name and remain civil. That's not very hard.
The reason we have our own discussion list is that on other discussion lists, we have been vilified and abused by people who know who we are, but who hide behind nicknames. We don't believe that that is appropriate for a public consultation process.
I might give you a rough break-down here. But I'd like you to tell me why you don't think that our invitation to discuss the proposal with all members of the editing group is preferable.
Discussion of the linguistic evidence leads to consensus.
Who pray, of the names on the document (21 now) are its 'editors'? You dislike people who hide behind nicknames, but your editors seem to need to hide in a scrum of people. It's clear that some of them are not linguists or regular Cornish users and so could contribute little more than moral support. Furthermore there are several Cussal an Tavaz members listed, although it's clear from their submission to the Commission that they are by no means committed to Kernowak and would if they could just as readily do a deal with KK if it was offered to them.
So who are the 'experts' who cooked up Kernowak?
Also where's the list of all the many people who've signed up on your site in support of the proposal. Have you had any takers? I really can't believe that if you'd had more than a handful you wouldn't be splashing the list all over your site.
Once again an AT member is merrily passing off misinformation as truth, believe me the CLB went into this matter very thoroughly and took professional advice to confirm their own researches. Copyright in an unpublished ms by an unknown author used to last indefinitely under common law. A few years ago a new statute put an end to this, but not immediately. So the copyright in BK has, from memory, something like 20 years still to run. Ownership of the copyright has no connection with ownership of the ms. The NLW don't own the copyright, neither did Caerwyn Williams in all probability, unless he'd somehow been assigned it by a descendant of the original writer (not even the scribe of the existing copy who makes it clear that he wasn't the author!)
Now I would imagine that a insitiution like the National Library of Wales would know the laws of copyright inside out, or at least their legal dept. would. And yet, and yet, here's one of their minions making threats against the CLB, in restraint of trade perhaps? People and even organisations often panic when the receive 'official' letters threatening legal action, and that was clearly the intention here. In the event the Language Board called their bluff, and they retreated PDQ with their cowardly tails between their legs.
Oh yes, and our friend Everson seemed to know the content of the letter almost before it had been opened (and that's on record in another place) ...
Read what I wrote, Keith. I was talking about ownership rights NOT copyright. You'll have to provide proof for your last allegation - who is it that posts private mail onto public fora?
The members of the UdnFormScrefys group are subscribed to the discussion list at Kernowak.com. They are the editors.
It's clear that some of them are not linguists or regular Cornish users and so could contribute little more than moral support. Furthermore there are several Cussal an Tavaz members listed, although it's clear from their submission to the Commission that they are by no means committed to Kernowak and would if they could just as readily do a deal with KK if it was offered to them.
A group of people whose names have been published.
I find it difficult to be concerned with what you can and cannot believe, Keith. It is clear from your behaviour toward me for the past two years, and especially since March, that you loathe me and the work which i have done in support of the Cornish language. You have pretended friendliness and then gone for the jugular too many times for me to be impressed by soft rhetoric from you. You have yet to show good faith. I think I have done better in that regard than you have.
We have a list of supporters. It grows. We will publish it when we submit our proposal formally to the Commission. I am not disposed to giving you any ammunition by telling you how many there are. I am also aware that you will use the fact that I am not telling you how many there are as ammunition anyway. I'm sorry for that, but you choose your own tactics, and I shall choose mine.
This whole process is very strange. On the one hand we have one man who devised an orthography a long time ago. That orthography has problems. Many problems. So many that it has been possible to publish more than a thousand pages discussing its problems in comparison with real evidence found in the traditional texts. No satisfactory response to that criticism has ever been received.
But that one man has a stranglehold on the Revival, because while he purports to be a scholar, he doesn't act like one, in my opinion. A real scholar admits when he is wrong. He thanks his critics, and makes changes for the better. Here, what we have is his coterie in the CLB all supporting him and doing all they can to preserve the status quo. The fact that half the Revival prefers traditional spelling is irrelevant to those few. So they make a lot of noise in the WMN, and they try to paint Professor Williams as some sort of foreign demon (for daring to criticize George and KK) and on and on.
I think that KS is a splendid orthography. It's robust and accurate. It's not confusing or arbitrary. It looks like traditional Cornish and is easly to relate to Cornish placenames. It is a fitting successor to Jenner, indeed.
The Revival is split. It is George and his supporters who split it, 20 years ago, by contriving to take over the CLB. You can go on as much as you like with your claims that "democracy" was in effect then but it was KK which caused the split. And twenty years later, we are still split.
Cornish needs a spelling reform. KKers digging in their heels and dismissing the half of the Revival which does not accept KK is not a way forward. It's just digging in and hoping that people will go away. What a pity that we all could not have co-operated and worked together toward consensus.
But wait.. that's what UFS did. We did co-operate. We did work together, in a group. We did achieve consensus.
UdnFormScrefys' invitation to the CLB's experts to discuss a Fifth Form of Cornish remains open. You, Keith, may trot out your rhetoric about how spelling reform is not needed, or the silliness about the "secrecy" in which UFS began its work, but it remains the case that we have been, were, and are open to dialogue with George and the CLB. The door is open. We cannot make you come into the room.
Having read Evertype's response, it strikes me that the split was originally caused by a certain Tim Saunders who decided to attack Nance's Unified, closely followed by Prof. Glanville Price. I'm not saying that UC was perfect - it wasn't and needed revision. Even Peter Pool, as staunch a supporter of Nance as there could be, said: "minor improvements could have been (and indeed still could be) made".
However, and as all will have noticed by his posts on this forum (and others) Tim is not exactly a diplomat. The wording of his initial concern constituted an attack, which put backs up and, basically created a furore.
Only then did a tiny minority decide to replace Unified with Ken George's new Kemmyn spelling, which didn't resemble written Cornish from any period of its history. Why such a radical change? It wasn't necessary (and still isn't). If it doesn't work with written Cornish, it works even less with place names.
It's a pity that Williams's revision of Unified didn't come along until 1995. Had it been 10 years earlier, the present situation would never have arisen. OK, so Prof. Williams is also not the world's best diplomat but his scholarship and ability cannot be faulted (he has also been a language bard since 1962 - much longer than today's self-proclaimed "experts"). Resistance to his work is much, much more about personality clashes than it is about scholarship and the best course for the language. What Williams did was to address the recognised faults of UC in as subtle a way as could be achieved. The result still closely resembled historical Cornish. He himself admits that UCR is not necessarily the last word, and that there was room further adjustments and considerations.
That's a long way from "we have a perfect system" that we hear from the KK leadership. In his admission, Williams was inviting further inout from others. KK admits none, nor will its leaders talk to others. Perhaps it should take the lead given by some its grass roots members who have seen KS, like it and have offered further input. That is what discussion leading towards consensus is about.
KS remains a proposal and offers a firm basis for further compromise. It's not an imposition as KK was.
No matter what Sandercock's track record may be (and it is impressive), many of those involved with KS have equally impressive records. His magazine contained articles making certain assertions and the UFS group that has worked on KS deserved the right of reply. He refused to give them that right, and that is all there is to it. It is suppression, rather as the CLB has, for years, deliberately suppressed RLC and UCR by refusing to hold exams in those forms of the language. Any reasonable person or neutral observer would view this as unacceptable.
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