Cornish phonology
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The
Cornish language Cornish (Standard Written Form: or ) , is a Southwestern Brittonic language, Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is a List of revived languages, revived language, having become Extinct language, extinct as a livin ...
separated from the southwestern dialect of
Common Brittonic Common Brittonic ( cy, Brythoneg; kw, Brythonek; br, Predeneg), also known as British, Common Brythonic, or Proto-Brittonic, was a Celtic language spoken in Britain and Brittany. It is a form of Insular Celtic, descended from Proto-Celtic, a ...
at some point between 600 and 1000 AD. The phonological similarity of the Cornish,
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
, and
Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally ** Breton people ** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Ga ...
languages during this period is reflected in their writing systems, and in some cases it is not possible to distinguish these languages orthographically. However, by the time it had ceased to be spoken as a community language around 1800 the Cornish language had undergone significant phonological changes, resulting in a number of unique features which distinguish it from the other neo-Brittonic languages.


Research history

The emergence of a language that can be described as specifically Cornish, rather than a
dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
of late Common Brittonic, has not been conclusively dated and may have been a process lasting several hundred years. According to Kenneth Jackson, the Common Brittonic period ended around 600 AD due to the loss of direct land communications between western and southwestern Britain following the Anglo-Saxon incursions. Kim McCone, however, assumes a later date, around the turn of the first millennium, citing continuing maritime connections and the various shared phonological developments during this period, such as the accent shift and internal i-affection. Only minor differences, such as the sporadic (orthographic) denasalisation of Common Brittonic *m, can distinguish Cornish from Breton during this period, and no single phonological feature distinguishes Cornish from both Welsh and Breton until the beginning of the
assibilation In linguistics, assibilation is a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is a form of spirantization and is commonly the final phase of palatalization. Arabic A characteristic of Mashreqi varieties of Arabic (particularly Levantine ...
of dental stops, which is not found before the second half of the eleventh century.
Ken George Kenneth John George is a British oceanographer, poet, and linguist. He is noted as being the originator of Kernewek Kemmyn, an orthography for the revived Cornish language which he claims is more faithful to Middle Cornish phonology than its precu ...
divides the history of the Cornish language into four periods: * Primitive Cornish, before the earliest written records. * Old Cornish,  800 – 1200 * Middle Cornish,  1200–1575 * Late Cornish,  1575–1800 These dates are broadly accepted, though Talat Chaudhri uses slightly different dates, based upon the estimated dates of the surviving texts. As with other languages known only from written records, the phonological system of Cornish has to be inferred through analysis of the orthography used in the extant manuscripts, using the methods of
historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...
such as
internal reconstruction Internal reconstruction is a method of reconstructing an earlier state in a language's history using only language-internal evidence of the language in question. The comparative method compares variations between languages, such as in sets of co ...
and the
comparative method In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...
. This task is hampered by a relative paucity of surviving texts, but the existence of a number of documents written in rhyme, as well as the work of
Edward Lhuyd Edward Lhuyd FRS (; occasionally written Llwyd in line with modern Welsh orthography, 1660 – 30 June 1709) was a Welsh naturalist, botanist, linguist, geographer and antiquary. He is also named in a Latinate form as Eduardus Luidius. Life ...
, who visited
Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
for three months in the early 1700s and recorded what he heard in an approximately phonetic orthography, have allowed linguists to reconstruct various stages of the phonology of the Cornish language.


Explanation of symbols

Most symbols below correspond with their expected IPA values. Some non-standard symbols used in the literature are explained below: * *μ - a fully nasalized sound * *ī, *ū, etc. - Proto-Celtic and early Brittonic long vowels * *ĭ, *ŭ etc. - Proto-Celtic and early Brittonic short vowels *â, ê etc. - Late Cornish long vowels * *ʉ (= *ü in Schrijver's notation) - an i-affected *ŭ * *ɵ (= *ö in Schrijver's notation) an i-affected *ŏ * *e̝ = "raised e", eg. from i-affected *ă or *ĕ * *ō̜, *o̜ = "open o" - from Proto-Celtic *ā (and *au, according to Schrijver) * *o̝ - "raised o" * *Σ used by Jackson to represent a sound between and perhaps similar to a strongly aspirated


Main features and issues


Stress

Stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
in polysyllables was originally on the final syllable in the earliest Cornish, which then shifted to the penultimate syllable at some point in the eleventh century.
Monosyllable In linguistics, a monosyllable is a word or utterance of only one syllable. It is most commonly studied in the fields of phonology and morphology and it has no semantic content. The word has originated from the Greek language. "Yes", "no", "jump", ...
s were usually stressed, apart from the definite article, possessive adjectives, verbal particles, conjunctions and prepositions. According to Ken George, Middle Cornish verse suggests that the pitch-accent remained on the final syllable.


Rules for vowel length

From around 600 AD, the earlier Brittonic system of phonemic vowel length was replaced by a
New Quantity System The New Quantity System, or the Great British Vowel Shift, was a radical restructuring of the phonological system of the Common Brittonic language which occurred sometime after the middle of the first millennium AD, resulting in the collapse of the ...
, in which vowel length is
allophonic In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
, determined by the position of the stress and the structure of the syllable. After the Old Cornish accent shift to the penultimate syllable, probably in the 11th century, the rules were as follows: * vowels in unstressed syllables are short * vowels in stressed syllables, followed by two or more consonants (including the long
fortis Fortis may refer to: Business * Fortis AG, a Swiss watch company * Fortis Films, an American film and television production company founded by actress and producer Sandra Bullock * Fortis Healthcare, a chain of hospitals in India * Fortis Inc ...
or
geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
consonants *mm, *nn, *ll, and *rr) are short ** There is some evidence that vowels were also realised as long or half-long before the consonant clusters *sk, *st and *sp. This may have been due to the influence of English loanwords, or perhaps because such clusters were analysed as a single consonant. * vowels in stressed syllables, followed by a single consonant (or in hiatus) in polysyllabic words were half-long * vowels in stressed syllables in monosyllabic words were long * vowels in irregularly-stressed final syllables of polysyllabic words were long The date of the breakdown of these quantity rules, due to the influx of English loan-words not conforming to the original system, is disputed.
Nicholas Williams Nicholas, Neco, Nico or Nick Williams may refer to: Sportsmen *Nick Williams (fullback) (born 1977), American NFL football player, a/k/a Nick Luchey *Nick Williams (rugby union) (born 1983), New Zealand rugby league and rugby union player *Nick Wil ...
dates it to before the earliest Middle Cornish texts, whereas Ken George states that this change did not occur until 1600. According to this analysis, Cornish at some point returned to a system of
phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
vowel length as in early Brittonic after this so-called "prosodic shift", and most vowels in polysyllables became or remained short.


The "prosodic shift"

The suggestion that Cornish phonology underwent systematic changes in its vocalic system first appears in Ken George's ''A Phonological History of Cornish'', who dated it to around 1600. Nicholas Williams, however, later suggested that this Prosodic Shift occurred some centuries earlier, either in the early thirteenth century or the twelfth century. According to Williams, the consequences of the prosodic shift are: * Vowel length becomes phonemic * Half-long vowels become short * All long or
geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
consonants are reduced to short or single consonants * Vowels in unstressed syllables tend to be reduced to
schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
* Vocalic alternation * All nuclei in
diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s are now short Williams's theory has been criticised by several linguists. Chaudhri points out that "there is no incontrovertible evidence as yet to show that any such Prosodic Shift ever occurred" at any time, especially not as early as postulated by Williams; he further argues that "the observed results of
pre-occlusion In linguistics, pre-stopping, also known as pre-occlusion or pre-plosion, is a phonological process involving the historical or allophonic insertion of a very short stop consonant before a sonorant, such as a short before a nasal or a lateral . Th ...
in the sixteenth century would have been impossible if the inherited quantity system had been radically re-shaped centuries before." and states that George is "quite correct in his rejection of Williams's evidence for the Prosodic Shift at a date before the Middle Cornish period" He also rejects George's use of Late Cornish spellings to support a shift c. 1600. Albert Bock and Ben Bruch argue that Williams's claim that all diphthongs were short from the thirteenth century at the latest "does not withstand even a cursory glance at Edward Lhuyd's transcription of Late Cornish diphthongs", which were collected in the early 1700s.


Vocalic alternation

Nicholas Williams points out that the reflex of Common Brittonic *ī and *ĭ in the Middle Cornish texts is usually written as in monosyllables, but is often written as in polysyllables. This phenomenon is known as 'vocalic alternation'. This written alternation does not appear in all of the Middle Cornish texts, and there is disagreement on how this alternation should be interpreted. Both Ken George and Nicholas Williams interpret this as a purely orthographic phenomenon. According to Williams, the continued writing of and in monosyllables is an archaism and a reflection of orthographic conservatism which does not represent the contemporary pronunciation of the scribes. According to George, the scribes who wrote were describing the quality of the vowel, whereas those who wrote were describing the reduced quantity of a half-long vowel in a polysyllable. Both of these interpretations are questioned by Bock and Bruch, who argue that the use of and in the texts reflects the phonetic reality of the language at around the time the manuscripts were written. According to their analysis, the graph used by the scribes is determined by the quality of the vowel (rather than the quantity), and vocalic alternation is a consequence of the lowering of Old Cornish *ɪ to *e. They further state that vocalic alternation "cannot therefore be the result of a general shortening of vowels, unless one accepts Williams's assertion that 'by the Late Cornish period, vowels in stressed monosyllables had again lengthened.'"


Assibilation and palatalization of dental plosives

* Assibilation and palatalization of Old Cornish *t and *d: ** According to George, the groups *lt and *nt, except when followed by a vowel plus a liquid or a nasal, were assibilated to *ls and *ns respectively, c. 1275. ** Also according to George, medial and final *d, including in the groups *ld, *nd and *dw, became assibilated to *z in similar phonetic environments, c. 1325. This sound change also does not occur when *d is followed by a vowel plus a liquid or a nasal. ** Chaudhri argues that these phonemes in this environment were first assibilated (apart from a few early cases of palatalization), then palatalized to *dʒ later, perhaps with *ʒ as an intermediate step. ** George now argues that assibilation occurred first, followed by palatalization, but states that the change to *dʒ did not take hold in the Powder hundred. ** Nicholas Williams proposes the following schema for the evolution of Old Cornish *t and *d: ***In medial and final position *t in the groups *lt and *nt was affricated to *ts before the twelfth century. ***Intervocalic *t was affricated to in some words. ***Around 1100, *d was affricated to finally, and medially before certain vowels and *w ***Before a stressed front vowel, or before *j followed by a stressed vowel initial *d was affricated to in some words following a final *n ***Medially after *l and *n, was voiced to ***Before stressed front vowels and *j followed by a vowel, was palatalised to *dʒ, and became ***Some dialects of Cornish tended to more regularly palatalise to *dʒ, and to *tʃ, even when not followed by a high front vowel. ***In dialects in which this did not happen, was simplified to *z and was simplified to *s


Summary of developments from Proto-Celtic to Late Cornish

Notes


Descriptive phonology


Old Cornish c. 1000AD

* was an allophone of *n before *k. * Whether *ʍ should be classed as a phoneme, rather than a realisation of *hw, is disputed. Talat Chaudhri lists it as a separate phoneme. * Iwan Wmffre speculates that *x may have been phonetically a uvular . * The precise realizations of *r and *rr are unknown. Chaudhri speculates that an
apical Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to: *Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology) *Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...
realization is perhaps the most likely.


Middle Cornish c. 1400 AD

* *ʒ~dʒ is the reflex of Old Cornish *d in many environments according to Chaudhri. According to Nicholas Williams, Old Cornish *d in these environments was either palatalized to *dʒ or assibilated to *z, depending on dialect. * geminates other than *mm, *nn, *ll, and *rr are not generally accepted, and are put in brackets here * In George's view, the *o̝ phoneme is realized as when short, and when long or half-long. Also, he states that *o is realized as * *ɪu is rare according to George, who has now removed it from many words, and its continued existence at all in Middle Cornish is disputed by Williams and * *yu, the supposed reflex of Old Cornish according to George, is based on rhyme evidence and etymology, but only occurs in a few words, and is disputed.


Late Cornish c. 1700 AD

* By this time, *x was merging with *h (or disappearing) in all environments. * By 1600, historical *mm and *nn were generally being realised as and in stressed final and penultimate syllables (and occasionally as and in penultimate syllables), respectively. * There is a tendency for final fricatives to be lost or confused with one another * Whatever their phonetic realisation, the distinction between *rr and *r may have been lost at this stage, if not earlier. Alternatively, *rr and *ll may have been realized as devoiced or aspirated sounds, in contrast to their historical singleton counterparts. * Tendency to replace *ʍ with *w from the Middle Cornish period onwards becomes more frequent. * Old Cornish *d now consistently merged with either *z or *dʒ, or rarely *r (< *z < *d), except when followed by a vowel and *n, *l, or *r, where original *d remains. * Albert Bock and Benjamin Bruch classify *ɛː and *eː as separate phonemes * Lhuyd's description of Late Cornish phonology, as well as contemporary pronunciation of Cornish placenames, may indicate the raising of *a to . * Wmffre disputes Lhuyd's description of *ɒː as a distinct vowel and claims that the low realization of Cornish long *oː (perhaps as ) may have led him to make a distinction that did not exist. * *ui seems to be found in only a few words such as ('more') and ('egg').


Revived Cornish c. 1904–present

Cornish ceased to be spoken as a community language around 1800. The revival of the language is generally dated to the publication of Henry Jenner's ''Handbook of the Cornish Language'' (1904). Jenner's work aims to pick up where the language left off and, as such, is mainly based upon Late Cornish vernacular and Lhuyd. Since this time, a variety of other recommended phonologies have been proposed, based upon various target dates and different theoretical reconstructions. *Jenner's system Jenner's system is largely based on the phonology of late Cornish, and therefore is characterised by pre-occlusion, the loss of the rounded front vowels, and the raising of to . This system was used by the earliest revivalists, until it was replaced by Nance's Unified Cornish. *Unified Cornish Robert Morton Nance developed what came to be known as Unified Cornish from the 1930s. Nance based his system more on the earliest Middle Cornish texts, Pascon Agan Arluth and the Ordinalia. With a target date of around 1500, Nance's system is characterised by the addition of the rounded front vowel and a recommendation not to use pre-occluded forms. *Revived Late Cornish Mainly associated with Richard Gendall, who began to promote this system in the early 1980s, Revived Late Cornish again seeks to base its phonology upon an analysis of Lhuyd and the other Late Cornish sources. *Kernewek Kemmyn Developed mainly by
Ken George Kenneth John George is a British oceanographer, poet, and linguist. He is noted as being the originator of Kernewek Kemmyn, an orthography for the revived Cornish language which he claims is more faithful to Middle Cornish phonology than its precu ...
following the publication of his thesis, ''A Phonological History of Cornish'' (1985), Kernewek Kemmyn again returns to a Middle Cornish target date. This system has a number of differences from Nance's reconstruction, including the addition of a second rounded front vowel , an additional vowel , and a phonemic contrast between and . Also Kernewek Kemmyn is characterised by phonemic consonant length, half-long vowels in stressed penultima of polysyllables where appropriate, and a number of diphthongs which are not used in other systems. The following tables are based on . *Unified Cornish Revised Following the publication of , Nicholas Williams published his revision of Nance's system in the form of a grammar, Clappya Kernowek, and an English-Cornish Dictionary. UCR is notable for the absence of George's /o/ and /ɪ/ phonemes, lack of half-length, and a phonemic contrast between long and short vowels rather than consonants. However, it retains the /œ/ vowel of KK, which Unified Cornish does not use. *Standard Written Form The
Standard Written Form The Standard Written Form or SWF ( kw, Furv Skrifys Savonek) of the Cornish language is an orthography standard that is designed to "provide public bodies and the educational system with a universally acceptable, inclusive, and neutral orthograph ...
, agreed in May 2008, was developed with the intention of allowing all users of previous systems to write as they pronounce the language. It attempts to represent the pronunciation systems of UC, UCR, KK and RLC in a single orthography. As such, it does not represent a single phonology, but seeks to cover a range of pronunciations based on a period of several hundred years. *Kernowek Standard (KS) Kernowek Standard is an orthography and recommended pronunciation developed mainly by Nicholas Williams and Michael Everson in response to perceived problems with the SWF. Like the SWF, it attempts to represent a diverse range of pronunciations, with the exception of KK, the recommended phonology of which is not catered for. Although it mainly differs from the SWF orthographically, it has a number of phonological features which distinguish it from the SWF.


Historical phonology


Possibly already in Proto-Celtic c. 1000 BC

* *ei > *ē * *eu > *ou


From Proto-Celtic to Proto-Brittonic c. 1000—1 BC

* *kʷ > *p * *skʷ > *sw (initially) * *gʷ > *w (initially, before vowels) * *gʷ > *g (initially, or before *r) * *ɸ > ∅ (in most contexts) * *sɸ > *f (initially) * *sr > *fr (initially) * *ml > *bl * *mr > *br


From Proto-Brittonic to Late (Southwestern) Brittonic c. 1 — 800 AD

*c. 50–100: ** *s becomes *Σ (word-initially, before vowels) or is lost (internally) *** 'hunt' > *late 1st century: ** *ai is
monophthongized Monophthongization is a sound change by which a diphthong becomes a monophthong, a type of vowel shift. It is also known as ungliding, as diphthongs are also known as gliding vowels. In languages that have undergone monophthongization, digraph (o ...
to *ɛ̄ *** 'wood' > ** *eu (perhaps already merged with *ou in Proto-Celtic) and *ou are monophthongized to *ō̝ *** 'people' > *** 'red' > ** *au is monophthongized to *ō̜ according to Schrijver, but to *ō̝ according to Jackson *** 'vain, empty' > **vowel reduction in proclitics and final syllables ** *ū is fronted to *ǖ (internally and word-finally) ** *oi is monophthongized to *ū, perhaps with *ō̝ as an intermediate step ** non-syllabic *i̯ is strengthened to *j *by the 1st–2nd century: **
stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
shifts from the initial syllable to the penultimate syllable *end of 3rd century: ** *ō̝ and Latin internal *ō̝ are raised to ū *4th–early 5th centuries ** *j becomes *ð in certain contexts *c. 400–450 **word-finally, *x becomes *s **final a-affection: final *ā (and perhaps also *ă from Latin loans) lowers *ĭ and *ŭ in the preceding syllable: *** *ĭ > *ĕ *** *ŭ > *ŏ *c. 450: ** *ǖ (from Proto-Indo-European *ū and PIE and Latin word-final *ō) is fronted, and merges with *ī *** 'fort' > *c. 450–500: **
Lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonority hierarchy, sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronic analysis, s ...
: *** voiced plosives become voiced fricatives in some contexts: **** *b > *β **** *d > *ð **** *g > *ɣ *** *m > *β̃ *** voiceless plosives are voiced in some contexts: **** *p > *b **** *t > *d **** *k > *g ** *ā is retracted and raised to *ō̜ ***According to Schrijver, *au also becomes *ō̜ ** final i-affection: *ī or *j in final syllables causes certain sounds in the preceding syllable to be fronted: *** *e > *e̝ *** *a > *e̝ *** *o > *ɵ *** *u > *ʉ * c. 500: ** beginning of the loss of final syllables **beginning of *mb, *nd > *mm, *nn ** *ɣ > *u̯ (some contexts) * c. 6th century: **ɛ̄ (from earlier *ai) and *ē (from earlier *ei) each develop an offglide, realized as *ɛ̄ⁱ and *ēⁱ, respectively *c. 500–550: ** *u is lowered to *o̝ ** *ĭ becomes realized as *ï (in Jackson's notation) or *ɪ (according to McCone) ** *ɣ in the groups *lɣ and *rɣ is devoiced, resulting in *lx and *rx, respectively ** gemination in external
sandhi Sandhi ( sa, सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on near ...
** *ū > is fronted to *ǖ ** *Σ is
debuccalized Debuccalization or deoralization is a sound change or alternation in which an oral consonant loses its original place of articulation and moves it to the glottis (usually , , or ). The pronunciation of a consonant as is sometimes called aspira ...
to *h at the beginning of the second element of compounds *c. 550: ** completion of the loss of final syllables ** composition vowels are syncopated ** perhaps loss of *-ɣ after *e *c. 550–600: **loss of other composition vowels ** provection: ***voiceless geminate plosives become voiceless fricatives: **** *pp > *f **** *kk > *x **** *tt > *θ ***single voiceless plosives become voiceless fricatives after liquids: **** *lp > *lf **** *lk > *lx **** *rp > *rf **** *rt > *rθ **** *rk > *rx ** initial *Σ is debuccalized to *h, including in the group *Σw, which becomes *hw *c. 600: ** *ō̜u (from āu̯ and āɣ) > *ou (disputed) ** *xt > *i̯θ ** Latin *xs > *i̯s ** the New Quantity System - vowel length loses phonemicity, and becomes predictable from context *c. 7th century: ** *μ becomes partially denasalized to *β̃ (or ṽ, in Jackson's notation) *c. 650–700: ** *ēⁱ becomes *ui *c. 700: ** *ɛ̄ⁱ becomes *o̜i *c. 8th century: ** internal i-affection: *i, *ɪ, *j, and any sound produced by final i-affection, in any syllable, causes certain sounds in the preceding syllable to be fronted: *** *a > *e̝ *** *ɛ > *ɪ *** *o > *ɵ *** *ŏ̝ > *ɵ ** loss of *ɣ in some contexts *c. 750–800: **occasional loss of final *-β (in monosyllables after *ü) and final *-β and *-β̃ (in polysyllables) **Occasional vocalization of *β and *β̃ before *n, *l, and *r


Old Cornish c. 800 — 1200 AD

*c. 800–850: ** svarabhakti - an
epenthetic In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek language, Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable (''prothesis (linguistics), prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syll ...
vowel develops in words which ended in either vowel + resonant + *w or vowel + consonant + resonant *** 'thief' > *c. 900: ** *oi merges with *ui *** 'woods' > **in absolute initial position, *w becomes *gw (or sometimes, subsequently, *g) *** 'weak' > *** 'man' > > *late 10th century: ** *o̜ is fronted to *œ *** 'great, large' > *c. 1000: **the accent shift - stress is retracted from the final syllable to the penultimate syllable *before c. 1100: ** *ai is monophthongized to *a in unstressed syllables *c. 1050: ** in internal and final position, the groups *lt and *nt are assibilated to *ls and *ns, respectively. George dates this change over 200 years later, to c. 1275 *** 'cliff' > *** 'valley' > *c. 1100: ** in internal and final position, *d is assibilated to *z, except before the combination vowel + resonant. George dates this change to c. 1325. *** 'food' > ** *β̃ is denazalized to *β *** 'sheep' > *early 12th century: ** *β becomes *v, or is occasionally lost in final position *** 'sheep' > *** 'black' > *c. 1150—1300: ** In unstressed final syllables, *œ is unrounded to *ɛ; Jackson dates this change earlier, to the end of the 11th century *** 'horserider' > *other changes: ** *o̝ (from earlier *ŭ) merges with *o, except in final unstressed syllables *** 'deaf' > ** *ʉ > *ɵ *** 'holes' > ** *e̝, *ɵ > *ɛ *** 'mountain' > ** *e̝i, *ɵi, *ei > *ei ** *e̝u, *ɵu, *eu, *œu > *eu ** *ɣ > ∅ (usually) *** 'good' >


Middle Cornish c.1200 — 1600 AD

*by 13th century: ** A new phoneme *ç may have been introduced, mainly from loan-words of French origin *** 'face' *13th century: ** irregular initial palatalization of *t to *tʃ in the word 'house' *c. 1200: ** *œ > *ɛ, *i > *ɪ, *y > *ɪ (unstressed, closed syllables) *** 'kitchen' > *** 'miracle' > *c. 1350: **in stressed position, *ai > *ɛ *** 'beach' > ** *ui is monophthongized to *o̝ according to George and Schrijver, with several exceptions. Alternatively, *ui merges with either *o or *u depending on dialect according to Williams. *** 'grey' > (1) *** > (eastern dialect), (western dialect) (2) ** *uia > *o *** 'duck' > *c. 1475: ** *ɛ > *a (unstressed absolute final) *** 'old settlement' > *c. 1500: ** When long in stressed syllables, *ɪ is lowered to ː Bock and Bruch, and George, suggest that this change took place by a process of lexical diffusion beginning c. 1100, and completed in at least some varieties of Cornish by c. 1500. Alternatively, Nicholas Williams argues that *ɪ merged with *e (perhaps subsequently raised to *i, in some dialects before coronal fricatives) in the 12th century, before the Middle Cornish period. ***(1) **** 'world' > **** 'worm' > ***(2) ****dialect A: ***** (> ) > ***** 'worm' > ****dialect B: ***** > ***** 'worm' > *c. 1525: ** *ɛ > *a (unstressed closed final) ** *o > *a (final unstressed syllables) *** 'to him' > *c. 1550: **pre-occlusion - the geminate (or fortis) nasals *nn and *mm develop into pre-stopped consonants *ᵈn and *ᵇm, respectively: *** 'head, end' > *** 'crooked, wrong' > *c. 1575: **In final unstressed position, *θ is lost: *** 'garden' > ** internal *z is rhotacized to *r in a few words: *** 'was' > *other changes: ** *ai (< Middle English loans) ** *uiw > *yu (disputed) *** 'God' > **secondary enhanced i-affection in *a > *ɪ in a few words ** *o > *ǝ (pretonic syllables) ** in some words, forms with initial glides *j and *w exist, in opposition to forms without these initial sounds. This opposition is probably dialectical, and is attested from the 15th century *** ~ 'at' *** ~ 'Jews' ** *ssj > *ʃ ** *tj > *tʃ ** *zw > *z (> *dʒ) *** 'four' > ** According to George, new geminate phonemes *pp, *tt, *kk, *ff, *θθ, *ss, and *xx develop to accommodate English loan-words to the Cornish quantity system. These phonemes are not generally accepted. They may however have existed as allophones, especially in comparatives, superlatives and certain verb tenses. *** 'older' >


Late Cornish c.1600 — 1800 AD

*c. 1600: ** *ɛ > *ǝ > ∅ (pretonic syllables) *** 'love' > > ** *œ > *ɛ (long, stressed) *** 'great' > **When long in stressed syllables, *ɛ is raised to ː*c. 1625: ** collapse of the New Quantity System - return to phonemic vowel length. Nicholas Williams dates this change much earlier, to the twelfth century **In final stressed position, *-rθ > *-rh > *-r *** 'together' > ** When long, in stressed syllables, *o̝ raises to ː with several exceptions: *** 'food' *c. 1650: ** In unstressed syllables, *ɪ is lowered to *e *** (past participle suffix) > *other changes: ** *i > *ǝi (final, stressed) *** 'house' > ** *ɪ > *i (final, stressed) *** 'I, me' > ** *o, *o̝ (= ) > (short, stressed syllables) ** *uː > *au (possibly) ** *y > *iu (finally, or before x) *** 'black' > ** *y > *i (long, stressed) *** 'narrow' > ** *eu > *ou ** *ɪu > *eu ** *au > *oː or smoothed (stressed syllables) ** *ou > *ǝ (final, unstressed syllables) ** *-rθ, *-lθ > *-rh, *-lh (or lost) ** *-θ > ∅ (final, unstressed syllables) ** In stressed syllables, *-rð- > *-rr- *** 'to walk' > ** *ɪx > *iː (stressed syllables) ** finally, after a vowel, *-x > *-h > ∅ *** 'child' > > ** *lx, *rx > *lθ, *rθ or *la, *ra ** *-rx- > *-rr- *** 'silver' > ** in a few words, *s is palatalized to *dʒ *** 'he would' > ** *ns, *nz > *s, *z (unstressed) ** 'new lenition' - in initial position, when preceded or followed by a liquid, nasal, or vowel, *s and *f are voiced to *z and *v, respectively: *** 'Penzance, holy head' >


Notes


References

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Further reading

* * {{Language phonologies Cornish language Celtic phonologies