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.[1]
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
- ↑ It seems likely that in the very peculiar intonation of Zennor, Morvah, Towednack, and the country part of St. Ives the true intonation of Cornish may be best preserved. But this is mere conjecture.
