Beach Ices at Praa Sands
Ice meeting the sand at the base of the low cliff behind Praa Sands Beach, West Cornwall. 6th January 2009....
Icicles at Trewellard Bottoms
Water seeping through a wall is turned to icicles, ate Trewellard Bottoms, where Geevor Mine meets the sea....
Winter Sunset at Levant
A late afternoon scene, at Levant Mine, West Cornwall. 7th January 2009....
Winter at Levant
The old electricity generator building, at Levant Mine, West Cornwall, during the recent cold snap. 7th Jnauary 2009....
Marvelous! It is great to see that video clips are produced for this age group! I hope that there will be more of the kind.
As an aside, I have a phonological question. As I understand it, <pryv> should have a lax but long vowel. Why is it pronounced [prIf] in the video? The IPA in the Gerlyvrik says [prI:v]. I can understand the devoicing of /v/ in auslaut, but why is the vowel short? At the LWG meeting I was told by a KK user that " and <y> show vowel length", but according to Ken and Keith they don't - what is going on here? Is this a misunderstanding based on the assumption that tense /i/ is always long and lax /I/ <y> is always short as in English?
And has [prIf] with a short vowel become the de facto standard pronunciation in spoken KK, even though this is not how it is transcribed in the dictionaries?
Sorry about the messy layout. Apparently some of the symbols I used were misinterpreted by the forum software as html tags. Unfortunately, I do not have the right to edit my own submissions, so I'll repeat the messed up part of my message and try to avoid triggering html.
I have had a look into Wella Brown's GMC, and what I have found there supports my suspicions. He writes:
i is like the 'ee' in E. 'beet' but somewhat closer. [...] y is the 'i' of E. 'bit' but somewhat extended.
I think future KK text-books and grammars should emphasise the fact that both 'i' and 'y' can be long, half-long, or short.
I am going to have to relay your phonological question to others who know better than myself.
The project to make the film was an attempt to make a short film with no written text, in light of the controversy over written forms of Cornish.
The essential idea was to provide a learning tool that all sectors of the language community could use with their families.
Since the preschool audience we were aiming at would be of a relatively low literacy level we wanted to concentrate on simple words and phrases that could be used without relying on written text.
Future learning tools like this are likely to be accompanied by written material, we are all watching the unfolding spelling debate with great interest.
Of course where we are exposed to scrutiny is in pronunciation.
Since any future projects like this are in the development stage any advice on what the language speakers of Cornwall want for their children would be, naturally, greatly appreciated.
The idea that Cornish y is short is mistaken, but regretably rather widespread. The symbol y indicates the relatively open quality of this vowel /I/, it's length is governed by the quantity rules just like any other vowel. In pryv it will be fully long [prI:v].
As far as we know /v/ was not unvoiced finally, except perhaps if closely followed by another word beginning with a voiceless consonant. In pausa, a final /v/ would be more likely to be weakened and dropped (as in some Welsh dialects). The idea that final -v and -dh were unvoiced was a mistake that Nance made, hence UC 'gwyth' for gwydh, 'pryf' for pryv etc. If words like pryv are still being pronounced as they were in UC, (20 years on!) that only shows how easily people get set in their ways, and traditions become established.
Of course, if the Revival succeeds, then the time will come when Modern spoken Cornish will set it's own standard, independant of the historical language. While some usages and expressions have certainly already become established, on the whole I would favour retaining a broadly prescriptive attitude, based on the historical language, at least until 'normal' intergenerational transmission has been securely reestablished. Others may think differently however
This is the way Breton works, but I'm not so sure about Cornish. It rather seems that in Cornish the consonant was fully voiced in stressed syllables after a vowel, whereas it was unvoiced, or dropped as you correctly point out, in unstressed syllables.
There is evidence that Cornish once had a system of sandhi similar to that in Breton. It seems to have been lost at some point though - but a few fossilised sandhi were preserved in everyday phrases and place-names.
So [prIf] for <pryv> is a kind of hybrid - the [-f] is from KU, and the short [I] is based on a misunderstanding of what <y> represents in KK? I find this very interesting because when I suggested (on another list) that mainstream RC pronunciation lingers somewhere between KU and KK, with strong interference from English added into the deal, I was told that this was not only 'rather dismissive of the astonishing competence of some speakers' but also speculation.
I have to admit that I'm completely relaxed about variations in pronunciation. It's good to have markers to aim for, since they aid intercomprehension, are a valuable pedagogical tool, and help in defining stylistic variation. But we also need some palpable empirical evidence. Sadly, until recently most of the academics who ever mentioned Cornish belong to the linguistic equivalent of the Flat Earth Society (cf. dear old Glanville's howlerfest 'The Languages of Britain'). It would never have occurred to them to get out and record Cornish-speakers. It deLIGHTed that trained linguists are now looking at the laguage systematically.
Why don't we rely on Lhuyd's phonetic code (excellently interpreted by Dick Gendall a few years ago in "The Pronunciation of Cornish"). It is, after all, the only record we have by a trained observer, of living Cornish from native tongues. It is obvious from all the varying opinions that our knowledge that pronunciation of Cornish from any earlier period is three parts guesswork and one part blind faith; and whatever conclusion we draw can never be verified (unless we ask Tim. He lives in Cardiff where they film Doctor Who. Perhaps he can beg, borrow or steal the Tardis in order to find out).
Bardh says that we have no record of how Cornish was pronounced in the first three quarters of C20. Several speakers from that period are still with us, Tim. I've just mentioned Dick Gendall - he started to learn Cornish wwhen he was 4 (he's in his 80s now). Listen to his pronunciation. Several works produced after 1960 included cassette tapes that must still survive somewhere. Try Wootton/Gendall: Crowdy Crawn for both spoken and sung Cornish.
Pronunciation is an entirely personal thing - in a country as large as Cornwall, there are bound to be quite a range of pronunciations - just look at the range of English spoken in Cornwall.
Sorry but I don't want my Cornish to sound exactly like Dick Gendall, Brenda Wootton or indeed anyone else (exactly).
We can't escape that we live in the 21st century, there is no way that we completely recover 17th/18th century pronunciation and we shouldn't even attempt to.
If we had a Tardis, I think it would be enough that people in the 16th,17th centuries would understand what we speak today.
Definitely, although as a result of the Spelling Wars the question of dialects in traditional Cornish has unfortunately become taboo - much like many other points which would merit further discussion.
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