Individual Statements in Support of Kernewek Kemmyn

Tim Saunders : letter to Cornish World magazine

 

The way to develop the well-established common standard written form of Cornish is by enriching its vocabulary and idiom from the various modern dialects and from archaic forms of the language. The living standard accepted by the overwhelming majority of Cornish-speakers has evolved naturally from the authentic modern tradition. Any attempt to turn the clock back 20 years by reopening the long-settled question of the orthography is bound to fail. The most positive outcome it could hope to achieve would be to delay official recognition of our language by several years. At worst, it could derail the enterprise entirely. This would earn them the gratitude of those who wish harm to Cornish and its speakers. It would also earn them the condemnation of every fair-minded person. The insulting notion that we are so stupid as to need "impartial outside experts" to settle our differences is, quite simply, contemptible. Such transparent chicanery would require scholars having limited acquaintance with the Cornish-speaking community, and no accountability, to lay down the law for it. No reputable academic would destroy his or her own reputation by taking up such a patronizing stance

Tim Saunders, Caerdydd, Wales/Cymru/Kembra

Ken George : Letter to An Gannas (346)

 

Y'n keskusulyans synsys a-gynsow yn Tremogh, an restryoryon a vynnas dalleth argerdh hir dredho may hallo bos dismygys lytherennans nowydh dre gesewl.

My a syns na yllir gwruthyl lytherennans yndella, hag yn neb kas, nyns eus edhomm vyth a lytherennans arall.

My a grys bos Kernewek Kemmyn an gwella lytherennans, ha'n kamm gwella rag an termyn a dheu yw kemmeres Kernewek Kemmyn desempis avel lytherennans soedhogel rag adhyskans ha skrifennow poblek.

 

During the conference held recently at Tremough, the organisers sought to begin a long process whereby a new orthography [for Cornish] might be achieved by consensus.

I do not believe that an orthography can be arrived at in that way, and in any case, there is no need at all for another spelling system.

I maintain that Kernewek Kemmyn ['Common Cornish'] is the best system, and the best way forward for the future is for Kernewek Kemmyn to be taken up immediately as our official spelling for [use in] education and official documents.

Dr Ken George, Seaton/Seythyn

Philip Knight : Letter to An Gannas (347)

 

[Yth ov vy] rag Kernewek Kemmyn avel Furv Skrifys Unnverhes an taves awos us soedhogel yn dyskans hag yn maters an Konsel a-lemmyn hag y'n termyn a dheu. Yth yw parys seulabrys, re borthas prevyans etek blydhen hag yth yw devnydhys gans brassa rann Kernewegoryon. Kekeffrys, an lytherennans ma a veu ervirys yn 1987 gans Kesva an Taves Kernewek yn golok kuntelles igor. Y feuv vy ena my ow honan. Mars esa tus erbynn y'n eur na ha warlergh, nyns o gans an brassa rann.

My a gows avel Bardh Kernow, dyskador neb a dhyskas Kernewek yn skol yn Kernow dres a-dro dhe dhewdhek blydhen ... ha kesoberor a dreylyans an Bibel.

... My a glyw yth yw devedhys an prys mayth yw res diskwedhes ... an pyth yw brys brassa rann a Gernewegoryon. Govenek a'm beus y hwra sevel ha bos reknys an lies person neb a wra devnydh a KK!

 

I am in favour of Kernewek Kemmyn as our Agreed Written Form of the language for official use in education and Council matters, now and in the future. It is ready now, has withstood eighteen years of testing, and is used by the majority of Cornish speakers/learners. Furthermore, this is the orthography that was agreed upon by The Cornish Language Board in 1987 in an open public meeting. I was there myself. If there were people opposed [to KK] then or afterwards, that was not the view of the majority.

I speak as a Bard of Cornwall, a teacher who has taught Cornish in school in Cornwall for around twelve years ... an a collaborator in the Bible translation.

... I feel that the time has now arrived when we must make clear ... the will of the majority of Cornish speakers. I trust that everyone who makes use of KK will stand up and be counted!

Philip Knight, Penzance/Pennsans

Ray Edwards

 

My [a vynn] skoedhya Kernewek Kemmyn avel 'Standard Written Form' a Gernewek. Dell hevel dhymm, devedhys yw an termyn wosa neb etek blydhen a dhadhel ha treweythyow bresel dhe ervira an dra, ow pysi orth pub Kerneweger leverel py eghenn a Gernewek a vydh da dhodho avel SWF. Ogas sur yw an brassa rann dhe leverel 'Kernewek Kemmyn' mes res yw dewisyans soedhogel dhe brevi an dra dhe oll an bys. Unnweyth an dra yw prevys ny dal dhe dus gorth dadhel er y pynn.

Kernewek Kemmyn bys vykken!

My a garsa profya kan a yll bos kenys orth ton 'Bro Goth agan Tasow':

A! Kernewek Kemmyn yw agan yeth ni,
Dhe gewsel, dhe skrifa, an moyha a vri.
Es Kemmyn dhe wir, nyns eus a vo gwell
An Kernewek gwir soedhogel
Kemmyn! Kemmyn y keryn Kemmyn
An yeth hedra vo yn fyw y'gan bro
Kemmyn a vyw yn Kernow!

 

I wish to support Kernewek Kemmyn as the Standard Written Form of Cornish. It seems to me that after eighteen years of debate and at times strife, that the time has now come to decide the matter by asking each Cornish speaker to state which type of Cornish they would like for the SWF. It is almost certain that the majority would say 'Kernewek Kemmyn' but an official referendum is needed to demonstrate this pubicly. Once the matter has been proved those opposed to it ought no longer to be able to argue against it.

Kernewek Kemmyn for ever!

"Kernowak"

Up to now there have been four well know spelling systems competing for full recognition and Kernowak is simply a fifth form adding to the present state of confusion.

When I began learning Cornish in 1981 the recognised system was Unified but many were dissatisfied with this and some were urging Late Cornish as being more suitable for the Revived Language. Ken George tried to effect a Third Form as a compromise. This failed utterly as such, but the majority of Unified users felt it was better than Unified and it was accepted by the Language Board with only one vote against. Some disagreement continued but from then on most people have learned and used Kemmyn.

Eventually, after several years, Nicholas Williams came up with Unified Cornish Revised (UCR) which he pushed for several years and gained some support from previous Unified users who did not like Kemmyn. In the meantime a massive amount of material was being written in Kemmyn by lots of different people. As far as I know the only things written in UCR were a translation of Genesis which I published, and a translation of Tennyson's Morte d'Arthur which was published by Richard Jenkin in his magazine Delyow Derow. Both of these were written by Williams, so it seems no one else has ever attempted to write in UCR. [Dr. Williams has more recently published his own translation of the New Testament in UCR].

Now Williams has dropped UCR and replaced it by Kernowak which seems to be an attempt to gratify Late Cornish users, and features the use of accents and diacritical marks which had been studiously and wisely avoided by both Kemmyn and UCR. I understand only about twenty people support this system.

So really there is no point at all in trying to adulterate KK, which has been in service for nearly twenty years, with this new fifth form. Kernewek Kemmyn did not work as a 3^rd form compromise. How much less likely is Kernowak to work as a 5^th form compromise?

All KK users should shun any idea of a compromise which is quite unattainable, and insist that only Kernewek Kemmyn in its present form is suitable as the Standard Written Form, which in fact it has been for the last twenty years.

Ray Edwards, Sutton Coldfield

Keith Syed : letter to the Language Development Officer

 

I am writing to you as the Kesordener (Co-ordinator/General Editor) of the Cornish Bible Project, which has a particular interest in this matter.

The Project was established at a public meeting in St Austell in November 1996, that was organised by the Bishop of Truro's Advisory Group on Cornish Language services (BTAG), of which I am a member. The Project now operates under the joint auspices of the latter and of the Cornish Language Board, which provides all the practical help (publishing, finance, linguistic expertise etc).

At its inception the Project agreed to accept work in either Unified or Common Cornish, and that it should all be based on the original Greek and Hebrew texts. Volunteer translators were called for. Apart from two who worked in Unys, and who dropped out at an early stage, all the fourteen who stayed the course were (and are) working in Kemmyn. It became clear very early on that there was no longer an active base of Unified writers to draw on, who had a sufficient knowledge of the language, or who had kept up to date with advances in knowledge about Cornish, and who were prepared to undertake such work. But although all the work has been done in Kemmyn, we kept to the original intention and provided a Unified version of the Kemmyn originals, transliterated automatically by a computer program (probably only some 95% correct, and needing very careful proof-reading). Copies of that were sent out in 2003, and it was placed on the Project's website free of charge in pdf form, where it still is. There has been no response at all to either of these. As far as the Project is concerned therefore, that is now dead — though still there, should anyone respond.

Kemmyn has proved particularly suitable for this work (apart from the fact that not only the translators but most of the interested readership — the active readers of Cornish — use it). Research into the language continually shows up new features, and Kemmyn has proved fully able to accommodate them as they appear. We need that ability in this Project. I know from my own experience that Kemmyn spellings and vocabulary are open to discussion in a way that other forms are not. It is flexible in a way Unys never has been — I noticed a tendency in the latter to hold that whatever Nance had said was right and unchangeable, like the laws of the Medes and Persians: it proved hard to make headway against that. It is not an attitude which fits with work of this sort.

No users of the Cornish style based on Late Cornish (17^th/18^th centuries) volunteered. And understandably no writers in the Late Tudor Cornish of UCR volunteered (they have their own New Testament). It would of course have been impossible to accommodate such different styles within the same covers as the MidC style of Unys and Kemmyn. All parts of the Bible are interconnected. It would not cohere.

Another feature of Kemmyn that is vital to this Project — and to the services that BTAG arranges from time to time — is its emphasis on correct pronunciation, and the ease by which even less expert readers can know how words should be pronounced. In the past we have heard the language murdered when read in services, and little or no attempt made to show that Cornish should not just be pronounced more or less like English. That sort of thing brings the language into contempt, but has been all too common. Kemmyn has been the only system that consistently offers a way out of this disgraceful state of affairs. UCR, by trying to keep generally to Nance's spellings or those of the traditional Texts, especially of the late Tudor period, leaves the reader floundering just as before, a real step backwards.

The long and short of it is, that Kemmyn has been perfect for this Project. All our working aids, which have been painstakingly developed over the last ten years in response to every problem we have encountered (involving Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic) are built on Kemmyn. The Project has spawned what is probably the biggest corpus of writing that there is in the revived language, and when the Bible is complete it will probably contain some 907,000 words (we are still some way off that!).

Yours sincerely,

Keith Syed, Cheltenham

Pol Hodge

 

Keith Syed a wra poynt pur dha. My a grys ynwedh bos an Testament Nowydh an ughella poynt a skolheygieth a'n Dasserghyans. Mes Projekt an Bibel yw rejester ughel, pyth yn kever an ober gwrys yn rejester isel, ha taklow artek a skoedh Kernewek Kemmyn:

Splatt dhe Wertha, Wild West Films, 1997 gwaynyer an Torgh Owrek Goel Fylm Keltek

Hwerow Hweg, Westcoast Productions, 2001, an unnsel fylm bras yn Kernewek

Kernow Kung-Fu Kick Ass Kweens, O-Region, 2003, gwaynyer Govynn Kernewek, Goel Fylm Kernow

De Sul, 2005 gwaynyer Govynn Kernewek, Goel Fylm Kernow

Yn-Dann an Gweli, From the Ashes, 2005, gwaynyer Govynn Kernewek, Goel Fylm Kernow

Fordh dhe Dalvann, Krena, 2005, gwayner Kesstriv PanKeltek

Treusperthys, Celtyon Bew, 2004, gwayner Kesstriv PanKeltek

Tir Kemmyn, Rachael, 2003, gwayner Kesstriv PanKeltek

An Arvor, West, 1998?, gwayner Kesstriv PanKeltek

Deus yn Rag Dolli, Phil Knight & Forbidden Fruit, 1993?, gwayner Kesstriv PanKeltek

Oll an ilow bryntin gans Graham Sandercock

Oll an ilow bryntin gans Skwardya ha Krena

Brassa rann an bardhonieth splann gans Ken George, Julyan Holmes, Cliff Stephens, Tony Snell ha gans penn bras, my ow honan, 240 lennans ha pymp lyver a vardhonieth yn Kernewek

An hwedhlow pur dha a Jowann Richards

Planet Kernow

... ha lies moy.

Yw oll a hemma heb us vyth-oll avel fentynyow adhyskel awos bos yn Kernewek Kemmyn?

 

Keith Syed has made a good point. I also think the New Testament represents the high point of scholarship in Revived Cornish. But the Bible Project is an example of the formal register, what about all the work done in informal Cornish and in the arts, which support Kernewek Kemmyn:

Splatt dhe Wertha, Wild West Films, 1997, Golden Torch Award in the Celtic Film Festival

Hwerow Hweg, Westcoast Productions, 2001, the only full length film in Cornish

Kernow Kung-Fu Kick Ass Kweens, O-Region, 2003, Govynn Kernewek Award, Cornwall Film Festival

De Sul, 2005, Govynn Kernewek Award, Cornwall Film Festival

Yn-Dann an Gweli, From the Ashes, 2005, Govynn Kernewek Award, Cornwall Film Festival

Fordh dhe Dalvann, Krena, 2005, PanCeltic Competition Winner

Treusperthys, Celtyon Bew, 2004, PanCeltic Competition Winner

Tir Kemmyn, Rachael, 2003, PanCeltic Competition Winner

An Arvor, West, 1998?, PanCeltic Competition Winner

Deus yn Rag Dolli, Phil Knight & Forbidden Fruit, 1993?, PanCeltic Competition Winner

All the fine songs by Graham Sandercock

All the fine songs by Skwardya and Krena

Most of the excellent poetry by Ken George, Julyan Holmes, Cliff Stephens, Tony Snell and by myself, 240 readings and five books of poetry in Cornish.

Jowann Richards' many fine stories

Planet Kernow

... and many more.

Are all these to be rejected as educational materials because they're in Kernewek Kemmyn?

Pol Hodge, Grampound Road/Fordh Ponsmeur