As i understand it, middle cornish suffers from the same problem middle
english does, in that a word is spelt differently depending on the way the
wind was blowing that day (so to speak). I do think however it would
probably be worth speaking to those that have worked with middle cornish
to
get a perspective on the issues that arise, those that worked with middle
cornish did a similar thing to that which you are suggesting so it would
probably save you an awful lot of donkey work. There are some books that
have been printed that have scans of the middle cornish texts, although, i
suspect you will probably be needing to have access to the original texts
themselves.
If it helps there is a book called "The Cornish Passion Poem in facsimile"
by Harry Woodhouse which has extracts of the cornish passion poem, tregear
homilies and the charter fragment. It was published by Gorsedh Kernow in
2002.
In terms of learning the language i think you'll find that the
orthographical differences you've mentioned will be less noticeable in
comparing the "modern" versions of cornish than middle cornish to the
current forms in use. I think that when the dust settles, those that do
transfer to what will be the accepted orthographical system will find it
less painful than people are thinking. I am however no expert in the
language (any language!!) but am sure you would get some help and sup****t
through organisations such as Kesva an Taves Kernewek.
When a orthographic system is accepted it does not mean that the others
will
be thrown out, it just means that there will be a spelling system that
will
be used for official use and teaching in schools etc. I'm sure there will
be
thriving language communities in all forms, just that we will have a
common
form.
Good luck with your work, i'd be interested in hearing your ideas.
Angof
"imipak" <imipak@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:1127238579.433301.228100@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Thanks. The reason Middle Cornish (or some derivative) is mainly of
> interest to me is that there seem to be a LOT of Cornish languages at
> the moment, but the main difference seems to be in how they deal with
> modern words and concepts, although the language did evolve quite a bit
> between Middle Cornish and Late Cornish. So it would seem I would find
> it easier to move onto whatever ends up as the accepted Cornish if I
> sidestep as much of the debate as I can.
>
> There's a slight twist to this. (Isn't there, always? :) Exercises are
> good in learning a language, so I've set my sights on doing a language
> translation for Cornish for some Open Source projects I'm involved
> with. This creates a problem, though - I don't want to im****t words,
> because that defeats the whole idea of using this to practice the
> language. For the same reason, I want to avoid words others have
> im****ted. It's fine if/when I use the language "for real", because you
> speak a language the way it's used, not according to formal studies,
> but I've found it easier for me personally to learn things "right" and
> then relax them to where they're useful, than the other way round.
>
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