Chapter I — Spelling and Pronunciation
§ 1 On the Pronunciation in General
In simple Cornish words of more than one syllable the stress accent is generally, though not universally, on the last but one. 54 The vowel of this syllable has usually its plain, clear long or short sound. The vowels of the unaccented syllables are usually obscure in the case of two of the broad vowels (a, o), and short in the case of the thin vowels (e, i, y) and of u, unless they are combinations of two vowels, in which case they are always long; but e in a final unaccented syllable is also generally obscure. The obscure vowel is the sound of u in the English word until, or o in London, and there is very little, if any, difference in sound between the obscure a, e, o, and u. When this sound occurs, as it occasionally does, on an accented syllable, or anywhere where it might be mistaken for a plain sound, it is written, according to the spelling of this book, ă, ŏ, or ŭ.
In words of one syllable ending in a consonant the vowel is generally to be taken as short, unless it is marked long (â, ê, î, ô, û, ŷ), or is a combination of two vowels. In monosyllables ending in a vowel, that vowel usually has its long sound, but as Cornish is largely accented in ordinary conversation by sentences (as is the case in Gaelic, and to a considerable extent in English), many monosyllables are slurred over with no accent (as enclitics or proclitics, according to whether they follow or precede the word on which they depend), and with more or less of the obscure vowel. The modern Cornish intonation of English is probably a very fair guide to the intonation of Cornish. 55
The consonants, especially f, v, dh, th, are rather more lightly sounded than in English. Any peculiarities of sound will be given under each consonant.
During the period in which the existing remains of Cornish literature were written, that is, between the twelfth and the middle of the eighteenth century, the spelling was very unsettled. There were at least six different systems, if no more.
1. That of the Cotton Vocabulary.
2. That of the Ordinalia, with a sub-variety in that of the Poem of the Passion.
3. That of the St. Meriasek.
4. That of Jordan’s Creation.
5. That of Boson, Keigwin, and other seventeenth and eighteenth century writers.
6. That of Lhuyd.
Not only did different writers differ from one another, but various ways of representing the same sound were used by the same writer. The earlier spelling shows a certain amount of Welsh, old English, and old French affinities; the latest is evidently modelled on modern English, which does not suit it very well, and the transition from one to the other is not very abrupt. It is the object of the present book to represent the probable pronunciation of Modern Cornish by a system fairly consistent in itself, but not too startlingly divergent from those adopted by previous writers (or from that of Breton, where coincidence occurs), and not too much encumbered with diacritical signs. It is to some extent a following of Dr. Edward Lhuyd, whose system, though rather clumsy and unnecessarily puzzling in places, was on the whole very good and of great value.