I purchased a copy of Nance's 1934 dictionary today. Two things may be said about diacritics. First, he says:
"The quantity mrks over vowels are not to be written. They are used solely to ensure correct pronunciation."
Easier to ensure it when they are written, but, OK, we have to let this imprecision pass. More interesting:
"The acute accent is used in cases of doubt, to show the syllable which is to be stressed in pronunciation."
On page one of the dictionary: bashé, lêhé ('abate'); berhé, cotthé ('abbreviate'); adró dhe ('about'); üskyshé ('accelerate').
Interesting. KD also marks irregular stress with an acute accent. Is it a requirement that the SWF mark it? (None of the other forms of Cornish has ever marked it in regular orthography.)
Ytho, esosta ow leverel bos an dra da po drog - mar nyns yw hengovek y hevelep herwydh us y'n tekstow koth? Fatell yllyn ni bos sur yth o Mordon ewn ow korra an poeslev war an rann 'he' an verbow na, ha ni ow kows an dra? My a wovynn hemma yn sempel rag ow les.
"Kernewek" is a good example and was made up by Nance in the 1920s. Why is asnyone's guess, as there were several attested alternatives. KK didn't address this question and carried on using Nance's word. It has been said that Kernowak isn't attested but it is: William Gwavas used that spelling. Both Kernuak and Kernuack are attested. So is Cornowok (interesting final vowel value), and there are several more. Why persist with an invented word?
Evertype, did you not understand my Cornish question or are you ignoring my contribution? I said,
'Ytho, esosta ow leverel bos an dra da po drog - mar nyns yw hengovek y hevelep herwydh us y'n tekstow koth? Fatell yllyn ni bos sur yth o Mordon ewn ow korra an poeslev war an rann 'he' an verbow na, ha ni ow kows an dra? My a wovynn hemma yn sempel rag ow les.'
Mar mynn'ta orthiv y dreylya, my a'n gwra. (If you want me to translate it, I will).
I understood it. I wish you would not try to prove your point by making your posts opaque to people who cannot read Cornish at all or who do not prefer your orthography.
What you wrote did not respond to my question. All varieties of Revived Cornish teach that there are words which have irregular (non-penultimate) stress. I'm not asking to debate that. Is it a requirement (of users of UC, RLC, KK, or UCR) that the SWF mark irregular stress?
There's no guide to the use of <sh> in words like leshanow. Would this be the kind of word where a hyphen is desirable? Of course, this isn't addressing the irregular stress question, for which I apologise, but it is another dilemma for debate.
In KS we propose that compound words with [s] and [h] may be written with the hyphen, as les-hanow, but in non-compound words we suggest that the apostrophe is more appropriate, as in uskys'he (since uskys-he really doesn't make sense).
Why not use just the apostrophe? les'hanow or le'he... could an apostraphe not indicate stress? although im not sure it would make very attractive writing?
In KS, at least, the apostrophe is normally used as a sign of elision (leaving a vowel out), as in dha'gan, na'gan, re'gan, y'gan. If it were used to mark stress it would be confusing to learners. In uskys'he it does not mark stress, but the division s-h. If stress were marked with the acute accent as in KD or Nance 1934, it would be uskys'hé
Cases where <sh> means /s/ + /h/ are very rare and don't cause a problem in normal reading. Learners just need a note next to the vocabulary item and maybe a few extra hyphens to begin with. But if this really bugs you, the answer is simply to think up an unambiguous grapheme for /S/. The pragmatic choice would probably be <x> (c.f. Basque, Nahuatl etc) but I imagine you'd go for something 'authentic' (i.e. aping Middle English), like a good olde Chaucerian <sch>. Then you could write <skh> if you needed to spell /sk-h/ perhaps. And KD could use the same graphs but with the opposite meanings, just to show how independent they are.
Words like `amari and mygh`tern would benefit from an accute accent in learners' materials, as there is no rule involved. In fact I would go so far as to recomment that all stresses be marked with accutes for the first few chapters of beginners' books, until they get the hang of the regular system. Of course this can only be done if the 'normal' spelling doesn't use diacritics, otherwise the reader and the typesetting system would need to be able to cope with stacked diacritics, which is probably not desirable, unless you're Vietnamese.
Morvran might have a point here. The difficulties arise during the learning process so maybe things like irregular stress can be marked in learning materials. Once used to the language, it just comes naturally. Various symbols can be used, from a diacritic to underlining to marking the stress by bold print. Perhaps do this for the first 2 (maybe 3) years courses, after which there will probably not be a need to show it.
In English, stress is always problematic. No one knows for sure whether it is CONtroversy or conTRoVersy (you could say it's controversial), DECade has, with some, become deCADE (rotten last 10 years). But we manage.
evertypes right verbs with -he dont need marking. if a spelling system builds words from regular roots used in a reg. way like Kemyn then its more obvyous, if u know les & hanow then its obvyous leshanow isn't pron. "sh"
Rescued girl's parents at bedside
The parents of a French teenager in intensive care after nearly drowning off the Cornish coast travel from France to be at her bedside.
Independent review team is named
Review of management at the Royal Cornwall Hospital's Trust to be lead by former nurse with 50 years NHS experience.
Charity hospices in £1m shortfall
Two hospices that care for thousands of terminally ill adults could be forced to close in a funding shortfall.
Man admits unrelated sex attacks
A man arrested in Cornwall admits sex offences and an attempted murder committed nearly a decade apart.
Death crash footballer has been jailed
Ex-Plymouth Argyle goalkeeper Luke McCormick is jailed for killing two children by dangerous driving.
Sanctuary in financial 'crisis'
A Cornish animal sanctuary, which is home to more than 50 horses, struggles to cover rising fuel and feed costs.
Text service for the deaf grows
A service allowing deaf and speech impaired people to text emergency services is rolled out in Cornwall.
Court seizes hundreds of knives
More than 200 people are caught carrying knives into a court building in Cornwall in 2008.
