Idiom and current usage

[Golvan]

Pokorny suggests movya 'move' and movyans 'movement'. In the texts, however, the word movya is used to mean 'move, urge, propose':

gans aga garm hag olua ihesus crist a ve mevijs may fynnas dijskynna yn gwerhas ha bos genys 'by their cries and lamentation Jesus Christ was induced to descend into the Virgin and to be born' PA 4ab
my a vyn kyns es dybarth muvya omma certan tra 'before leaving I shall propose a certain matter' BM 259-60
kepar dell ens y moviis dre an spuris sans 'as they were urged by the Holy Spirit' TH 18
omma y thyll bos movyes questyon 'here a question can be put forward' TH 29a
na ve an Catholyk egglos the ry thym experiens, ha ow movya thotha 'were the Catholic Church not giving me experience and urging me to it' TH 37a
thega movya y the thewys onyn rag bos in rome esa Judas ynna 'to urge them to choose someone to fill the position Judas had been in' TH 44a
An kynsa tra vsy worth ow movya ve the predery ha the cresy, an epscop a rom the vos pen war oll re erall 'The first thing that urges me to consider and believe that the bishop of Rome is the head over all the others' TH 50.

This being so, movyans should really mean 'proposal, urging' rather than 'movement'.

'Move' in a physical sense is usually rendered by gwaya:

Ny a vyn y carhara purguir na ala guaya na luff na troys 'We will imprison him indeed so that he can move neither hand nor foot' BM 3573-75
alemma num bus gvaya 'I cannot move from here' BM 4098
ha kepar ha men po carrak na yll bos gwayys 'and like a stone or rock that cannot be moved' TH 45a
an Tacklow gwayah ez toane bownnaz 'the moving things that have life' John Keigwin
ha spiriz Deu reeg guaya var budgeth an dour 'and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water' John Boson
ha dres kanifer tra es bounas ha guaya var an aor 'and over everything that has life and moves upon the earth' John Boson.

Gwaya is also used in a non-physical sense:

ny vynsa den vith styrrya na gwaya warbyn an colleges 'nobody would have stirred or moved against the colleges' TH 42a
ny vynsa den vyth gwaya na styrrya warbyn an bredereth a crist 'no one would have moved or stirred against the brethren of Christ' TH 48a.

And the noun gway 'move' is used in a transferred sense in the plural to mean 'next move' in BK:

Th'agan palas gwel ew thyn revertya gans cannow tek ha predery, ren Awstyn, a'gen gwayow 'It is better for us to return to our palace with melodious songs and to consider, by St Augustine, of our next moves' BK 2061-64.

To return to my point. Although it is natural to use movyans to refer both to physical movement and movement in the political sense, it is not clear that the word
movya as used in the traditional texts really gives us a warrant for such a sense.

Golvan

[Taran]

This is one of those subjects that has proved contentious in the past. I will raise it again here in the hope that we may get reasoned debate on it rather than polemic or invective.

If evidence arises to show that current accepted usage is incorrect, should we move to change current accepted usage or leave it as it is?

My position on this is firmly in the 'Change It' camp. My view is that we are reconstructing a replica. Where bits are missing then we must manufacture new bits to make the whole thing work, but if we discover a part for which we have previously manufactured a replacement, that part should replace the manufactured one in revisions to teaching and learning materials (one advantage to the internet as a learning resource).

What do others think?

[AnDonnNowydh]

It's not really clear what you're talking about Taran!

[Morvil]

Taran seemed quite clear to me. Should "modern usage" in Revived Cornish be regarded as prescriptive grammar, even in the light of contrary evidence from the traditional Cornish material? I.e.: should we "correct" our Revived Cornish usage where we find it is at odds with Traditional Cornish usage, or shouldn't we?

[towlenner]

If it's well-established I'd say leave it. If Cornish is to be a living language we have to accept change will happen.

[truru]

I'm on the fence about this one, if it's clear that a word doesn't mean what we think it does, it should be changed, we're reviving a language not constructing a new one. As for things like Kernewek instead of Kernowek, I would be more hesitant to get rid of it as it is so well known even by non Cornish speakers, but if it was ever got rid of it should be sooner rather than later.

[Morvil]

Taran, I understand where you're coming from and I agree for the most part. For me there is a difference between "established but uncertain" and "established and incorrect". I'd go with keeping "uncertain", but I'd try and avoid "incorrect". You are right where Kernewek and Kernowek are concerned. Thank God both variants are permitted in the SWF, so it's the speaker's personal choice which one s/he can use. I, personally, go with Kernowek, because the Late Cornish forms with /u:/ point towards a Middle Cornish diphthong /ou/ rather than /eu/. There is also an attestation with ow in the later Middle Cornish period: Cornowock (ca. 1570). Having said this, I see that Kernewek is a long established spelling and accept that many speakers of Revived Cornish wish to continue using it.

[Taran]

To explain myself, AnDonnNowydh, by giving an example (although morvil has already done a good job of paraphrasing my question):

Imagine a hypothetical situation where you fall through a time warp into the future where English has disappeared along with most of its texts and has been the subject of a revival by a small group of enthusiasts. You find you can just about understand them, but some things just seem ...wrong, for example they use the verb 'to propose' instead of 'to move'.
"I proposed my car from one car park to another",
"It isn't dead, I just saw it propose"
You suggest to them that they are using the wrong word and it should be 'move', but a number of them reject that, with the explanation that some of them have decided that the new word for 'move' is 'propose', and that English has been revived so the new word usage is therefore now correct. Would you accept that and start using 'propose' for 'move', even though it is clear that form is an incorrect interpretation?

That is a hypothetical illustration of my question. I am thinking of words where there is evidence to support the suggestion that current usage is incorrect, or due to incorrect interpretation. And, no, I am not thinking of any words in particular, merely the situation.

I go along with morvil that where there is uncertainty then the 'manufactured' bits should be as acceptable as any other proposal, but should one of the options be supported by evidence, my feeling is that the 'incorrect' usage(s) should be deprecated. That doesn't imply immediate eradication, merely depreciation in favour of the 'correct' form. I disagree slightly with towlenner, inasmuch as we are trying to revive a language. I accept the fact that languages change, but, as truru rightly points out, we are trying to remake something pre-existing. The very fact that we are trying to revive Cornish and not invent a new language like Esperanto means I feel we have extra responsibilities and constraints upon us. Neologisms are an accepted necessity for any living language, but I think there is a difference between a neologism and an incorrect interpretation. At what point in your learning path do you stop accepting corrections to your errors and insist that your errors are now correct even in the face of evidence to the contrary?

[towlenner]

A good example of misuse is ilow which we know is totally wrong, but no-one AFAIK is suggesting replacing it - or do you? Yes we are recreating Cornish, but if Cornish isn't allowed to evolve without cries of "that's not Cornish!" then it's not a living language, it's a museum piece. Maybe movyans isn't used today exactly as it was used 400 years ago but I think that's one of the language's least worries.

[Taran]

But evolution based upon error? How is that reviving Cornish?

Just because a group of people have all got used to repeating an error, why accept and promulgate that error? Why not admit it, correct it for the next generation and explain to new learners why they may come across people who use the wrong word. We (humans) all thought the world was flat once.

For neologisms, fine, coin away. But I see the revival as a continual learning experience ... for all, not just us beginners. This is like archeology. Cornish is from a museum, and like the dinosaur bones in a museum a lot of bits have had to be made to fill in the gaps. But when you find another bit of the skeleton, you don't hide it in the box and keep using the odd thing you knocked up to fill in the missing bit. Unless you got it right, in which case, feel free to marvel at your magnificent powers of deduction.

What is the difference between a beginners erroneous use of Cornish and a fluent speakers use that is subsequently shown to be erroneous, except perhaps the length of time the error has been perpetrated?