V Tree
A large V shaped pine tree on the Antony estate near Torpoint...
Seaton Beach
Located at the bottom of the Seaton River valley this sand and shingle beach is popular with families. At low tide it joins up with Downderry around the headland...
Seaton River
The Seaton River as it flows out of the valley and through the village of the same name...
Portwrinkle
Looking down over the one time fishing village of Portwrinkle. In the background is the start of Whitsand Bay as it stretches 4 miles down the Rame Peninsula...
"The Kowethas through its Council shall make such arrangements as shall be necessary for the election of members of Kesva an Taves Kernewek." The Cornish Language Board which adopted Kemmyn in the first place, publishes Kemmyn dictionaries and Kemmyn language courses, runs Kemmyn weekends and generally promotes the Kemmyn cause!
This one is an internal conflict among Kernewek speakers in Kernow. Your "enemies in the establishment" don't need to lift a finger. In fact, it's exasperating to see demands for greater support for the Cornish language while its users cannot agree among themselves over a standard written form.
However, we've got to bear in mind that there is very keen interest around the world in what is happening with the Cornish language and I understand experts are offering to work for nothing because it's a great opportunity. We tend to forget that this Cornish thing is quite phenomenal in many international respects.
That is just the same point - if the majority of members of the Kowethas use Kemmyn then they are likely to elect a Kesva of Kemmyn users. If enough members of the Kowethas used Unified they would, presumably, elect a Kesva that used Unified. Note that candidates for election do not themselves have to be members of the Kowethas.
We know that the majority of Kowethas members use Kemmyn - that's what the survey told us. But it's unfortunate that as a result the Kowethas gets branded as "the Kemmyn supporting group". It really is a shame that some users of other spelling systems therefore don't feel they can join it - and bravo! to the 10% of such people that decided they could.
In any case the situation is not as clear cut as you present it.
At the moment about a quarter of Kesva members use Unified (although an election is underway and as far as I can see only one candidate on the list uses Unified).
The Kesva supports a correspondence course in Unified and arranges examinations in Unified.
The Kesva organises teacher training days and so far the main written material on these days has been in Unified because the person best qualified to do the training uses Unified.
The Kesva does not arrange Kemmyn weekends, the Kowethas organises the weekends. And given that they are mostly about speaking rather than writing the language I really don't think it is fair to brand them Kemmyn weekends (and you've probably put someone off going by doing so!).
I think the answer is probably "yes, but...". When I asked the editor about this a couple of years ago, he said that he had only received one item for publication that year - a letter - in something other than Kemmyn (I think it was UCR), and he had published it in Kemmyn. But he said that when they were going through the transition from Unified to Kemmyn he had received lots of letters saying that people did not want to see a mixture of spellings because they found it confusing...and in any case the submissions in Unified simply dried up.
I don't know whether this is a good or bad thing. I'm a fairly fluent user of Cornish but I find reading Late Cornish very difficult, and the real truth is that I'd rather An Gannas didn't start publishing articles in Late Cornish even though the Kowethas does have one member (according to the survey) who uses Late. That's probably a shame too (that I can't be more accommodating!).
The point is that such a policy tends to drive away users of other orthographies, even if they're "officially" welcome to join. They're basically invisible except when a survey is taken. It's not surprising that submissions in Unified (UCR, Late) would dry up if they're not published as submitted.
And that's a shame, but it needn't be so. I use Kemmyn but I'm also a member of Agan Tavas, which supports UC and UCR and is sympathetic to Late but is very very anti Kemmyn! We need to stop believing our own hype about how polarised the situation is...because it isn't. "Some of my best friends use Unified".
They didn't dry up because they weren't being published as submitted. They dried up while they *were* being published as submitted. If you look at An Gannas through the late 80s and early 90s it is quite obvious that things were publilshed in whatever form they were submitted, and there is plenty of Unified. Slowly it becomes less and less until there is nothing and everything is in Kemmyn. There is even a plea from the editor at one point asking for more submissions in Unified! If there *is* a policy of respelling articles (and I only say 'if' because I can't speak for the editor) it has not always been so.
Very few members of the Kowethas write for An Gannas - so in that sense the vast majority are invisible. But I'm not sure that the members themselves would say that they feel they are invisible, regardless of which spelling they use. I certainly don't feel 'invisible' as a member of Agan Tavas, even though I don't support the spelling systems the organisation prefers and supports. Indeed, at least the Kowethas did do a survey and publish the results - it would be good if Agan Tavas did the same.
My basic message is that we could all make more of an effort to ignore or play down these apparent differences, rather than highlighting them at every opportunity. Fulub is right in my opinion - overstating our differences, and publicising them, is a great aid to those that want to sideline the language.
I couldn't agree more with you, Branvras. It is a fact that there are a number of egos on all sides of the debate who think they know best - this forum has highlighted a number of such instances. If all the egos were to simply keep quiet until they had their opportunity to address an independent panel of academically qualified experts, then a linguistically sound form of Cornish could be identified and made quickly available for public use. It all seems perfectly logical and simple to me!
Well it is certainly not my intention to put anyone off Cornish in whatever form! I think these are very interesting times for the language and am waiting with baited breath for the eventual emergence of the official SWF whatever it might be... hope it is worth the wait. I realize that I probably come across as anti-Kemmyn/Kowethas but I'm not, (being a member myself), just interested in the ongoing debate and in all forms of the written language old, middle, late, unified, unified revised, and kemmyn. Hopefully not stirring up a hornet's nest, just prodding it gently to hear it buzz...
You could probably count the number of schools on two fingers. Hayle was taught by Craig Wetherhill (he's been ill, not sure if he's still there). He used to use an obscure spelling system used by...well, Craig himself and nobody else, so I hope he he didn't use it to teach the kids.
Flamm, thanks. I was obviously lucky in my "State" education, and my little niper is lucky in his, being taught Cornish stuff by open minded teachers..mind you, a previous HM at Penpol School, Hayle was Leonard Truran, a dedicated Cornish enthusiast. Perhaps the effect lingers......
Is Schooling in West Penwith more "Cornish" than in other parts of the Duchy?
Police name death crash cyclist
Police in Cornwall name a cyclist who died after being badly injured in a collision on Sunday.
Training to distribute aid boxes
Cornish-based charity Shelterbox trains Burmese workers to distribute its boxes of aid for cyclone victims.
Pony pair graze conservation area
Two Exmoor ponies are installed at a Cornish conservation area to help manage the site by grazing.
Gyrocopter pilot had heart attack
A gyrocopter pilot whose machine crashed on the way to Bodmin Airfield died from natural causes.
Sanctuary man jailed over abuse
The former owner of a donkey sanctuary is jailed for five years for sexually abusing young girls.
Lorry stuck between buildings
A wrong turn ends in embarrassment for a lorry driver as his vehicle gets stuck in a Cornish village.
Police save harbour jump suspect
A man attempting to run from police is rescued by them after jumping into a harbour in Cornwall.
Why sweet turns sour for kirsty, 12
A young girl has banned a make of confectionery from her house after reading claims that one of the world's largest producers tests its products on animals.
