When and how was a ballot held? How were the electorate ("most Cornish users" ) determined? Where are the official tallies posted? What were the other options presented? I think this "vote" is just another fairystory. There has been no ballot. The belated results of the Partnership Survey do however show a clear lead for KK among all respondants, and a very substantial majority for "competent and frequent users". This rather suggests that the SWF is as un-needed as it unwanted.
It is always rather sad when a great man or woman makes a fool of themselves in old age. It is however not without precident. It was you who brought up the subject of PAS Pool's "Second Death of Cornish", and having read it, it's very clear that though heart-felt it is completely misguided. It's author had regrettably 'lost it'. The kindist thing, and the fairest to his memory, would be to draw a veil over this inappropriate outburst, for it is nothing more than misguided spite and opinion. There is no evidence presented anywhere in the book to suggest that anything untoward had taken place. Pool could not accept that the Kesva would ever go against the views of his idol Mortan Nance, but the fact remains that they did. Not by a knife-edge vote, but almost without desent.
Which returns us to the 21 points. Please stop peddling recycled fairytales and tell me where you disagree and present your reasons.
Seventy Percent of "competent & frequent" Cornish users prefer to write KK! (MAGA/CLP Survey)
AHG My apologies to Polin and Mina for leaving them off, there were of course eight not six members of the panel, but half KK and half not, as I'd remembered. Ken George was not a member, he was simply sent the papers for comment, as were Williams and Everson and for all I know others. Albert was there in a secretarial and editorial role jointly with Ben. Trond of course was to faciliate and if necessary have the last word.
The way the names were arrived at was indeed confusing to say the least. Groups were initially asked to suggest names to represent not just their own factions but the opposing groups too, or at least so it appeared. It took a little correspondence to sort all of this out. The whole business was a typical Partnership fudge.
Seventy Percent of "competent & frequent" Cornish users prefer to write KK! (MAGA/CLP Survey)
No, Keith, you're wrong. Ben was a full debating member of the AHG. What I don't know is exactly who appointed him to be so and why none of the orthographical groups were allowed a say in the matter. Everything is exactly as I described. Why are you trying to alter what you were not remotely concerned or connected with? OK, the arrangement wasn't the best (at least we agree on that) because, in my view, there was too much to discuss and not nearly enough time allocated for that discussion. There were items which simply didn't get discussed. Hence the need for a review in 5 years.
I'm telling you what I understood was to happen, and what as a Kesva member I implicitly agreed to. If that wasn't what happened then it's yet another case of the Partnership failing to make things work as agreed. I'm sure Ben was not appointed as a member of the panel. He was supposed to have the same role as Albert. Possibly Trond took technical advise from him because he was on the spot. I can see this might have happened, but I would consider it slightly out of order.
Seventy Percent of "competent & frequent" Cornish users prefer to write KK! (MAGA/CLP Survey)
Then it's clear that you didn't know Peter Pool who, sadly, did not make it to old age. Nor did he make a fool of himself. He put into words what a great many people felt.
Anybody that does more for the language than say "I'll learn it one day" deserves some measure of respect.
None of them, in my opinion, is out to damage the language on purpose however misguided or blinkered they may seem from 'the other side', ny vern which side that might be.
And many of them deserve masses of respect and thanks for dedicating years of their lives to the language.
Ye Gods,Pieter - I never thought that you and I were going to be able to agree on anything but there is not a single word of that post that I can argue against.
Of course, I'm rather defensive of Peter Pool. It was he who taught me much of what I know when it comes to archaeology, history, place-name research, etc (not so much the language, as I had yet to get into that but, of course, I had to know some to start tackling the place-names). Both he and Audrey (who, of course is still with us and very active)were wonderfully quirky people but with IQs that leave most of Mensa in the shade. My life is a lot richer for knowing those two (and Peter's archaeological colleague, the late Vivien Russell - I still remember Peter, Audrey and I scattering Vivien's ashes on the summit of Chapel Carn Brea. That was Vivien's idea, so that she could "keep an eye" on her beloved parish of Sennen).
It would, perhaps, be far better if we all acknowledge that each of us loves the language and just accept that, in some things, we think each other to be wrong. The name calling is getting a bit tiring and doesn't exactly put out a good advert.
What do I think of O'Searcoid's paper overall? Wish I could tell you. Applied mathematics leave me a bit cold (and lost). His sections on Dr George's figures and the mathematical computation had me cross-eyed.
Was there a Middle Cornish scribal tradition? Or did they spell the words as they heard them. If the latter, one might expect the orthography to have much in common with Latin, Norman-French and English. But I'm not sure that is true. And the various texts do contain a certain consistency.
Late Cornish spelling is, to a certain extent, a case of scribes writing the words as they heard them as few of them (Keigwin excepted)ever saw earlier Cornish writings. Nonetheless, LC spelling contains letter combinations to represent sounds that are rarely shown that way in English so maybe there is something there that requires futher study.
I am glad that RLC has at least some representation in the SWF, as LC itself is of great value (and, being from West Cornwall, I always preocclude in speech).. Richard Gendall's research threw up all sorts of things that had never been previously recognised.
I could continue but posting here for ages doesn't pay my bills (and I've just had to shell out on a replacement car - have leapt from 1100 Fiesta to 1900 Peugeot 406). So it's back to the mind-numbing Building Regulations.
Agreed. And others deserving respect and thanks include Nicholas Williams, Dick Gendall, and the late Ray Edwards and Myghal Palmer, to name just a few.
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KS: selven an Furf Screfys Savonek? -- Ya, hep wow!
All true. Which is why the less said about "The Second Death of Cornish" the better. Have you read it Pieter? It's where Marghek and Eddie and a few others who weren't involved 20 years ago get all their 'information' about the Kesva being taken over against the will of the masses etc.
Btw I assumed he was far from young because just over 20 years ago he handed over the Penzance class to John King.
Seventy Percent of "competent & frequent" Cornish users prefer to write KK! (MAGA/CLP Survey)
I wonder if there is really any point to this thread. Who split the language movement? You blame us, we blame you and it will be a cold day in hell before ever we agree. The fact is that the split occurred and we can't go back in time and change it and, in any case, it was over 20 years ago. It was a regrettable part of history
We should be looking at where we are and moving on. Rather than accentuate the differences, we should be looking at what we have in common and starting there.
Which is exactly what the SWF process did. They said "we have X, Y and Z in common, so let's write those straight into the SWF". And, lo, it was done.
Then they began to look at the differences. Some were reconcilable and compromise proposals were thrashed out and agreed upon. They got written in as well. The major part of the job done. All in all, remarkably cordially, too.
Then there were the differences that could not be reconciled, a few for factional reasons, most for technical ones. For example, it was decided to adopt the KK spelling <chi>, "house", rather than <chy>, because it was closer to the variant adopted <chei> which catered for the Late Cornish pronunciation which introduces a schwa between ch and i. I don't prefer <chi> to <chy> but that's what we have, so OK. In any case, in place names, where the word is the generic element, it tends to be pronounced ch', so the final letter doesn't really matter too much.
The variants aren't a problem, as I see it. There aren't very many of them and they do cater for preference and/or pronunciation differences. If you want to write <hwel> for "a mine", you can; or you can write <whel>. You can write <gwynn>, "white" or <gwydn>, depending on whether you preocclude. In that way, all preferences are catered for and it was a major achievement. Having initially felt a little uncomfortable about this, I've come to realise that variant spellings like this introduces just the sort of quirk that gives a language life and breath, rather than rigid systems of bland uniformity leading to the lack of real character that most existing forms are guilty of achieving.
What remains are those items that could not be fully discussed, or not discussed at all by the AHG (which, in my view, was simply not allocated nearly enough time to cover it all). Default graphs were inserted, some by Trond, others, I believe, by Albert and Ben, hence the need for a review in 5 years.
I need to stress that these are not factional problems, they're technical ones and some are not easy to sort out. What do we do about words like <bis>, "world" which some pronouce "beez" and others "baiz"? How do we spell that in a way that covers both pronunciations? One solution might be to spell the word <beis>, but it's not up to me. It's something that needs to be debated by many, right across the linguistic board, which is what the Spellyans list is for. I'd recommend that the review panel consists of the very same AHG and linguistic advisors who were appointed by the language groups. But, perhaps this time, with a different chairman/arbitor - maybe a leading Welsh scholar.
Having mentioned <chi>, I have made a place-name recommendation that <ti> be retained in those names that still contain it (Tywardreath, Tehidy, Tywarnhayle, Degembris, Tybesta, etc.). These names exclusively belong to major manorial centres and it may be that the retention of the archaic form <ti> was considered to lend some prestige or gravitas. Whatever the truth, there seems to be an historical reason for it and so I recommend retaining it rather than showing the word as <chi>.
I think that what we really need is five more years of the same round of the same arguments at the end of which The C.L.B. can re-introduce double consonants to show vowel length, keep gh in the middle of words and restore oe into the main form, and Spellyans can ammend the traditional form to obliterate all traces of K.K. and then guess where we'll be?
Is 'beis' attested? Why not spell it b(i/y)s?
Excuse me if I sound a little jaded, have been away for a while, but see that nothing has changed here.
There you are - the evidence is brought forth and, therefore, there can be no reason why it cannot be accepted. It does provide a solution. So, what is the argument against?
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